Local Search Marketing Tips

By Therese Goodwint


Business have been taking advantage of online local search marketing recently in their pursuit of increasing business. We have some great advice here that will help a local business to keep one step ahead of their market counterparts.

Investigate Local Directories

Similar to any type of SEO, local search optimization plans take some research and knowledge. Look up your business on a search engine yourself. Knowing where your business appears on directories is crucial, so this is the first step. Your business name is not the only thing you should look up during this search; plug in different variations of your address and phone number as well. Keep this information in your records by using a spreadsheet to document links and listings.

These search engines are kept up to date by local directories and 3rd party information gatherers. Your business information is compared to the index kept by the bigger search engines using external data. It's important, therefore, to ensure the signals from every local directory and data provider are correct and consistent. In addition to third party data, search engines use the citations in their index as a ranking factor. Name, address and phone number (NAP) references of a company on the internet are what citations cover.

Google Places

Use Google Places to list your business. Make sure you include as much information as possible. Select the categories your business falls into, update contact information and verify it's correct, and describe your company and list the hours of service. One of the more important aspects of this is categories; make sure that you include all categories that match your offering. The business in question should have the correct categories selected, if it's a French restaurant, select both "restaurant" and "French restaurant". This should then be accentuated by promoting the best of your business with exquisite photography of the products, (5 minimum) and of course an amazing cover photo.

Be sure to make Geo-specific Pages

Create location pages on site for multiple locations. If you have multiple locations, consider creating individual optimized pages on your website for each location. Keywords are crucial when you would like to increase business in a certain area, so choose these wisely and make sure they reflect the area of operation. Landing pages are helpful, that direct customers to the part of your business you are focusing on in the region.

When you target local audiences on your pages instead of globally you increase the chance of boosting your listing for local SERPs. Keywords and phrases should be carefully selected in order to gain the most benefit from the area your business is in rather than globally, and this will help you get higher in the rankings when customers seek out your products or services.

Request Reviews of your Business

Last but not least, customer reviews are a very important part of your strategy. These make a tremendous difference when it comes to the results from search rankings, so when you have a satisfied customer, it's a good idea to ask them to leave you a nice review. Make it clear that reviews are really important to you and that you are intently interested in that customer's opinion.




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