Search Engine Optimization

Many businesses and websites aren’t looking to dominate the national search results; they just care about doing well in their own neighborhood. For instance, a plumbing company in Phoenix, Arizona doesn’t want to get visitors to their site from Normal, Illinois, so ranking well for national keywords isn’t the primary objective. Even though that visitor is looking for a plumber (which you might assume makes them part of the plumber’s target audience) that Illinois homeowner isn’t going to hire an Arizona based plumber. This is why it is so important for local businesses to incorporate local SEO best practice guidelines into their onsite optimization process.

Here are 3 best tips for optimizing your website for local search:

Localize your keywords.
Localizing your keywords takes your keyword research process one step further. First, conduct your keyword research on a national level and select the most appropriate keywords on a page-by-page basis. Once you have your 2-5 keywords per page, you just need to add your location to each keyword to make them more appropriate for local SEO. For instance, I might target “Boston SEO,” “Boston MA SEO” and “Boston, Massachusetts SEO” if I were looking to attract more Boston-area SEO clients that are looking to work with a local SEO company. For a more in-depth look at how to localize your keyword research, check out this blog post.

Blog about local events.
A great way to naturally incorporate those localized keywords into your content is to blog about local events that are related to your business. Let’s go back to our Phoenix plumber. April is National Water Conservation month and let’s assume they decide to host a free workshop teaching homeowners how to check for common leaks in the shower, the toilet or kitchen sink. They can write a blog post announcing the event, as well as a recap post. Those blog posts can target keywords like “plumbing tips for Phoenix AZ homeowners, “free Phoenix plumbing seminar” and so forth. Since blog posts can rank individually, just like pages on your site, these localized posts can help build their online brand.

Get your site listed everywhere!
Bing, Yahoo and Google all have local business listings—get your site published on all three of them. You can also create local business profiles on peer review sites like Yelp and offer incentives (like 10% off their next purchase) to your customers when you ask them to review your business. You can also submit your site to local directories or join local business associations. Many local business associations link from their site to their members, and some will allow their members to submit guest posts or articles to the association’s blog.

Not only do local search profiles provide valuable, quality inbound links to your site, they can also rank individually in the search engines, increasing your brand presence. Local search profiles are also incredibly important for mobile search. When conducting a search on their smartphone, must consumers are looking for quick information like a phone number or address. They aren’t going to take the time to dig through your site to find that information. If you aren’t listed locally, you are missing out on connecting with your local audience. For businesses that rely on local foot traffic, not having a local search presence could spell disaster.

Here are 4 best practice tips for creating and developing local search profiles:

Claim your listing
Did you know that your business might already be listed in Google Places, Bing Local and Yahoo! Local (the big three local search engines)? One of your customers might have listed your business for you a long time ago. Claim it as the owner and you’ll be able to add photos, videos, links and more. Plus, you’ll be able to see what kind of reviews are being posted and keep the information up to date. Bing and Google ask you to verify your ownership by either calling you at the number listed or sending a postcard with a verification pin to the business address.

Don’t rush it
I’ve had clients with upwards of 30 legitimate locations all around the country try to submit all their business offices at once only to have half of them rejected. To the search engines, it looked like my client was trying to spam the local search, even though all of their locations actually existed. If you need to list multiple locations, spread it out over a few months so the search engines don’t think you are trying to trick them and flag you as spam.

Fill them out completely
The more information you can put in your local search profiles, the better. Add videos, pictures, and hours of operation, payment options and so forth. You never know what piece of information a customer might be looking for. Bare minimum, you need your full address (including zip code!), a phone number and link to your main website.

Find niche locations to create a profile
Does your hometown have a business association? What about hyper-local search engines specific to your area like WickedLocal.com? Aside from the Big 3 search engines, places like YP.com, MerchantCircle, Yelp, and Local.com are all popular local search engines with their own unique audiences. The more places you can build a local profile, the greater audience you can position your business in front of.

Not only do local search profiles provide valuable, quality inbound links to your site, they can also rank individually in the search engines, increasing your brand presence. Local search profiles are also incredibly important for mobile search. When conducting a search on their smartphone, must consumers are looking for quick information like a phone number or address. They aren’t going to take the time to dig through your site to find that information. If you aren’t listed locally, you are missing out on connecting with your local audience. For businesses that rely on local foot traffic, not having a local search presence could spell disaster.

Here are 4 best practice tips for creating and developing local search profiles:

Claim your listing
Did you know that your business might already be listed in Google Places, Bing Local and Yahoo! Local (the big three local search engines)? One of your customers might have listed your business for you a long time ago. Claim it as the owner and you’ll be able to add photos, videos, links and more. Plus, you’ll be able to see what kind of reviews are being posted and keep the information up to date. Bing and Google ask you to verify your ownership by either calling you at the number listed or sending a postcard with a verification pin to the business address.

Don’t rush it
I’ve had clients with upwards of 30 legitimate locations all around the country try to submit all their business offices at once only to have half of them rejected. To the search engines, it looked like my client was trying to spam the local search, even though all of their locations actually existed. If you need to list multiple locations, spread it out over a few months so the search engines don’t think you are trying to trick them and flag you as spam.

Fill them out completely
The more information you can put in your local search profiles, the better. Add videos, pictures, and hours of operation, payment options and so forth. You never know what piece of information a customer might be looking for. Bare minimum, you need your full address (including zip code!), a phone number and link to your main website.

Find niche locations to create a profile
Does your hometown have a business association? What about hyper-local search engines specific to your area like WickedLocal.com? Aside from the Big 3 search engines, places like YP.com, MerchantCircle, Yelp, and Local.com are all popular local search engines with their own unique audiences. The more places you can build a local profile, the greater audience you can position your business in front of.

Each local search site has a unique audience. Listing each of your office locations on various local search sites (Yahoo! Local, Bing Local and Google Places for instance) helps position your business in front of those audiences and increase your online brand presence. These local profiles will rank in the search engines themselves, helping drive traffic through to you main site and increase your conversion rate.

Watch this week’s SEO video lesson here!

As you know, link building is an important part of search engine optimization. It increases your company’s brand and visibility online and establishes trust with the search engines. The more relevant inbound links that your website has, the greater the chance that your website will rank well. There are many ways to build your links. Popular strategies include article marketing, social networking, blogging, blog commenting, distributing newsworthy press releases and directory submissions. Another great way to build your links is to submit your website to local profile directories. Some people tend to think that only a local business should do this, but that isn’t true. Even if you sell your product or offer your services to people across the country, a local profile can’t hurt. People are sometimes weary about what they see online and are worried about scams and concerned about privacy issues. A local profile establishes that you are an actual company, with an actual physical location. You’d be surprised how many more people are willing to trust you if you provide this information.

There are numerous places to submit a local profile online for free. The first place to start would be local search engine profiles. Google, Yahoo!, and Bing all offer free local profile submissions. The process for each is slightly different, but they are all pretty simple to submit to. Google Places, which is also sometimes referred to as Google Maps or Google Local, asks you to sign in using a Google account. You then type in the main phone number that is associated with your business. If that phone number isn’t listed and is available you can then “claim your business” and fill out information about your company including your address, your website, and a brief explanation about the products or services that you provide. Other information is optional to include, such as the days of the week that your business operates and what hours you are open. Once you fill out the form you will need to adhere to Google’s verification process. In order to exclude non-legitimate listings, Google has implemented a verification process that is done by phone or by mailing a postcard to the address that you used to sign up. It usually arrives within 2-3 weeks. Once you are contacted by Google, you can verify the listing and your Google Places page should be up and running. Bing Local is very similar to Google Places and also sends a verification pin to the business. For Yahoo! Local you only need to sign up, there isn’t a lengthy verification process. According to Yahoo! a site that you register should show up in Yahoo! Local results in about 5 days.

While it’s most important to submit your site to the local search engine profile directories, there are many other places to sign up for a local listing online, such as Yelp, Yellow Pages, and Local.com. The key to local profiles is to include the keywords that you are targeting. If you want to receive phone calls, try and get your phone number in the listing more than once. Local profiles are a great way to build links and get noticed.