Search Engine Rankings
Many experts say that consumers and small business use the internet to find products and services and as a matter of preference about local businesses draw 82% usage of the searches. This means there is a lot of opportunity for local companies with high SEO orientation.
Recently I was invited to speak at a luncheon for local businesses who’s focus was the optimization of local web search. Out of all the information that came out of the event, are the following 10 easy things you can do today to optimize sites and content to attract local customers.
1. Claim your profile. It’s as simple as logging into Google Places, Bing Local and Yahoo Local and walking through the verification steps which include a phone call or post card to verify your address. Don’t forget the Social Networks.
2. Upload Pictures. The local sites listing services like to provide their users with pictures of your business. To help ensure that they see some good pictures, upload your own. They don’t have to be professional photos, but they will represent your business so make sure they are very decent.
3. Control information across the internet. A big part of local search optimization and marketing involves obtaining information from other sites. Local listing aggregation services search the internet far and wide to find pictures, reviews and any information they can on your company. Submit your info to services like Localeze & infoUSA.
The downside here is that if something is incorrect on another site, it could find its way back into your local listing. If that happens, you have to go back to the source and ask them to fix the issue and then wait while the fix makes its way into local sites.
4. Ask for reviews. Most local sites,(not for Yelp), are fine with customer reviews. So do it. On your contact/thank you page, on invoices, on email communications, make a point to say “Hey we’d love it if you gave our business a review on Google/Bing/Yahoo Local.” These reviews, good or bad, make your business more creditable to future customers.
5. Bad reviews are good too. No company is perfect, so when users see all positive reviews, something looks wrong and they may actually choose a different company. Bad reviews are a part of any business and a few bad reviews can make the good reviews that much better. Obviously, you don’t want to encourage bad reviews.
6. Add local phone number. On your website, be sure to publish your local phone number in text vs within an image or not at all. 800 numbers may be nice, but the value of local prefixes pop out in local searches.
7. Have a full physical mailing address on all pages of your website, better yet, include a map on your site. Your address is important and it should be on all pages of your website to re-enforce your geographic location. A map will assist many users, be sure to include and point out parking. In congested metropolitan areas parking could make all the difference.
8. Think like the searcher/customer. What would your customers put in a search box to find you and buy your products?
Lets say you own an outdoor sporting good store; like hunting, camping, hiking and fishing. If a searcher puts put ’shoes’ into a search box, they probably aren’t a good match as it’s such a generic term. If they put ‘running shoes’ you’re still not a match as your sporting goods store doesn’t focuses on running. If they put in ‘hiking shoes’ then you want to target them.
Business owners often get caught up in popular keywords or keywords that will drive a lot of traffic and forget to focus on less popular keywords that have a higher probability of making sales. Be dynamic and flexible.
9. Multiple locations need multiple landing pages. Local sites don’t like a business having more than one local listing, but if the business has two locations, than that’s OK. However, you should ensure that each location links back to a page on your website that is all about that location and what it has to offer. Sending both local listings back to the same page, or homepage, isn’t ideal.
10. Treat Customers Right.. Everyone knows that they need to treat the customer right, but with social media, review sites and the ability for good, or bad, news to spread like wildfire, you need to treat your customers really good or “righter”. This includes online and offline customer service.
Local search takes into account information business owners put in their local profile, information it finds on other sites and information on the business’ website. Even what happens offline can be taken into consideration as customers may bring back those experiences in the form of online reviews.
Local search is it’s own unique entity as no one can control everything that appears on their local listing, but business owners can take steps to ensure that what gets listed is a good representation of the company. For more information, here is a list of local SEO blogs that we’ve reviewed in the past for TopRank’s BIGLIST with many, many more tips.
This is so interesting and informative. I hope you write more on SEO, its so hard to find facts and details
I am not sure where you are getting your info, but good topic. I needs to spend some time learning much more or understanding more. Thanks for magnificent info I was looking for this information for my mission.
Good things, loved this article
Great post mate!
Useful Post Of The Day: September 2011. Congratulations! Our blog editors have selected this post as the useful post of the day. Hope you write more.
superb stuff thanx
It is truly a nice and useful piece of info. I am happy that you shared this useful information with us. Please keep us up to date like this. Thank you for sharing.
I went over this site and I think you have a lot of superb information, saved to favorites (:.
Very good information can be found on web blog . “You have to learn that if you start making sure you feel good, everything will be okay.”
Ruben Studdard.
I would like to thank you for this delightful blog!! I throughly enjoyed every little bit of it. I look forward to seeing what else you post. Thanks
Howdy intelligent points.. now why didn’t I think of these?
I wanted to compose a small word to appreciate you for those splendid guides you are posting at this site. My time intensive internet lookup has finally been paid with awesome insight to exchange with my family.
Fantastic article, I have book marked this web-site so with any luck , I’ll see a lot more on this topic in the future!
Some truly fantastic info , Gladiola I observed this. “What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.” by Ralph Waldo Emerson.
This is a best post! Has fully describe the issue. Thanks!
I am only writing to make you understand of the awesome experience our daughter enjoyed going through your web site. She even learned such a lot of things, which included what it’s like to have a marvelous helping style to let other folks completely fully grasp specific impossible subject areas. You undoubtedly did more than people’s desires. I appreciate you for displaying such priceless, safe, educational and as well as unique guidance on that topic to Ethel.
Outstanding Post! Please keep them coming 🙂
Good info. Going to want a good amout of time to think about your site=)
I have learn a few just right stuff here. Definitely worth bookmarking for revisiting. I wonder how so much effort you set to make this type of excellent informative website.
This webpage does not render correctly on my android – you might want to try and repair that
I have been browsing online greater than three hours lately, yet I never found any attention-grabbing article like yours. It’s beautiful worth sufficient for me. In my view, if all web owners and bloggers made just right content as you did, the net might be much more useful than ever before. “Oh, that way madness lies let me shun that.” by William Shakespeare.
Hey – good weblog, simply trying around some blogs, appears a pretty nice platform You Are using. I’m at present utilizing Drupal for just a few of my sites but seeking to change considered one of them over to a platform very a lot the identical to yours as a trial run. Something specifically you’ll recommend about it?
Thank you, I’ve recently been searching for information about this subject matter for ages and yours is the best I’ve found so far.
I truly appreciate this post. I’ve been looking all over for this! Thank goodness I found it on Bing. You have made my day! Thank you again!
Hello! I just wish to give a huge thumbs up for the nice data you have here on this post. I shall be coming back to your weblog for more soon.
Simply wanna remark on few general things, The website design and style is perfect, the content material is really superb : D.
excellent advice Dave
F*ckin’ remarkable things here. I’m very glad to see your post. Thanks a lot and i’m looking forward to contact you. Will you please drop me a e-mail?
There’s definately a lot to find out about this issue. I love all of the points you made.
I just want to mention I am just new to blogging and site-building and truly loved this blog. Almost certainly I’m going to bookmark your blog post . You actually have remarkable article content. With thanks for revealing your blog site.