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.

In an increasing mobile world, local search profiles are becoming more and more important. If someone is looking for information on their phone, say the address or phone number of your business, they don’t want to dig through you site to find it. A local profile gives them all the information they need in a fast and efficient format. Local profiles can also rank on their own in the search engines, increasing your online brand presence. They can also be a source of targeted traffic and quality inbound links.

The same rules of on-site optimization still apply when it comes to local profiles, but here are 3 tips for local search optimization:

1. Create multiple local search profiles
Business owners definitely want to claim their listings in Google, Bing and Yahoo. These profiles often show up in the top of the SERP for each search engine, respectively. But there are plenty of other local search sites that deserve attention. Sites like Yelp and Urbanspoon are incredibly popular with customers looking to make immediate purchasing (as in choosing a place to eat or shop) decisions. Other sites like YP.com (the online Yellow Pages), Citysearch, MerchantCircle and Local.com are also great places to create a profile.

2. Fill profiles out as completely as possible
The more content you have on your local search profiles, the more information the search engines can comb through. Don’t just post your phone number and address (although those are must!) and call it a day. Include business hours, accepted forms of payment, languages spoken, directions, company biography, pictures, videos and consumer reviews. Customer reviews in particular can be incredibly beneficial. Having that element of a 3rd party recommendation goes a long way in encouraging potential customers to choose you over another business.

You can encourage your customers to write a review by offering them an incentive, like 10% off their next purchase. Most people only write a review if the experience is truly remarkable or absolutely horrible. You want everyone who was pleased with your company to say so.

3. Monitor your profiles
If you are accepting customer reviews, it’s important that you are aware of what people are saying about your company. You need to know if a string of bad reviews went up recently; they might be buying your good ones. You also need to see if other people are creating local search profiles on various sites for your company. Usually anyone can create the listing, but as the owner you want to make sure you claim each one. This is the only way you can remain in control over what gets posted.

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!