Local SEO: Make It Work For You

I’ve been working online since it was merely an expensive hobby in the eyes of many, not a cool occupation. Now I write for many local websites throughout the US, so I thought I would share some useful information I’ve learned with Internet users from other areas.

Although there’s a great of competition in the Internet business market, it’s important to work together and share ideas in this manner; more successful Internet businesspeople means a healthier corporate climate online.

Many people are curious about localized SEO (or search engine optimization, to use the more technical term) so I thought I would share some suggestions and advice regarding maximizing the benefits of DIY local SEO. I’ve broken these suggestions down into five steps (plus a sixth bonus tip—what a deal!); obviously far more could be shared, but these suggestions provide a sound starting point, and if all of the points are applied thoroughly and thoughtfully success will be within reach for the enterprising online businessperson.

1) Localize your target keywords. If you’re a New York-based wedding planner, include all the local areas and boroughs that you want to gain notice in, such as ‘wedding planner southwark’ ‘wedding planner west London’ and variations based on local search options. Of course you also want to aim for nationally based keywords too, but the localized ones are also useful, as most of your customers will probably come from your surrounding area (that whole ‘e-mailing the wedding cake’ business has been proven ineffective, trust me).

2) Submit your site to local search engines - if you don’t already know one, rest assured there are many local sites that cater to small businesses in the local area, and businesses have listed their services there for a definite reason. Ask your friends and co-workers about the best local search engines, or—what a concept!—look them up online! Even if the sites look poor and don’t have a page ranking, that’s not the key to online success when one is targeting local traffic.

3) A simple but effective means of attracting local traffic is to display your postal address, and your business address (if they are different, or just one if the same) in a prominent location; but once these addresses are indexed, these words in your address are included in the information portion of your site.

4) Submit to local sections of larger search engines; don’t forget sites like Craig’s List, Backpage, etc., etc. They are essential to reaching the people you need.

5) List your business on the local maps section of Google, this is free and is basic SEO techniques, but many people don’t bother because they fail to see the potential benefits. For local traffic, however, it’s important.

6) *BONUS* Exchange links (and banners as well, if you prefer) with local businesses. Be frugal about this and keep the numbers down to maybe five to ten links - try and keep the businesses relevant to yours; for a wedding planner, for instance, include links to ‘chauffeur car hire’, ‘flower shops’ etc, in the local area. Just linking to some random local businesses can be effective, but SEO benefits more from relevant links, so if you are going to do it, you might as well do it right.