Automated Split Testing

Key Facts about Local SEO

December 12th, 2010

If you have a local, offline business, you want to be well ranked in the search engine so you get local traffic. If you are looking for some good ideas for local SEO, the following techniques will help you.

One of the best ways to capitalize on the growing local search numbers is to list yourself with the big wigs of the industry. This means, of course, Google Maps and Yahoo! Local. These are the two biggest in the industry, so listing with them should be your first priority before you move on to the next step. Your aim of listing with these huge names is to get more search engine traffic, which will help you realize your goals. If you think that listing with Google Maps is hard, think again. All you have to do is fill out a little form and you’ll then be sent a phone message or an email so that you can let them know you are who you claim to be. After that verification process, you’ll usually have to wait about six weeks to see your site in the local search listings. Similarly, coming to Yahoo! the process is the same, except that you don’t need to go through the verification. With Yahoo!, you can make your listing look anyway you want.

Another plus about going with Yahoo! is that the approval process is very fast. Whatever you do, just make sure you don’t ignore this simple tip because it will take you a long way in your goal to reach out to the local audience. A local SEO technique that many marketers forget about is mentioning all of the other locations that your business operates within. Each city, county and state that you serve with your business should be listed in your ads. How can you accomplish this? Simply listing each area through bullet points won’t get you very good results but if you mention them within the content of the ad you should get some good responses. The reason you should do it this way is that it is easier for the search engines to absorb the details as data and analyze your business and the locations in which it operates. Your promotional and SEO efforts can be greatly assisted by doing this. What you need to remember is that even though these tips seem very simple, your local SEO efforts will be aided a great deal by making sure these tips get applied to your campaigns.

It is also very smart to work on getting your company listed in the Yellow Pages directory (and other directories like it). You can start off with some of these sites such as YellowBook.com, YelloPages.com and SuperPages.com. You should know that YellowPages.com gets more than 100 local searches every month and it offers free listings for business owners. At the same time, SuperPages.com is well known for sending their listed businesses to the major sites like About.com and MSN. You can have a very basic listing with them for free. In summary: local search engine optimization does require some extra effort on your part but later on, when you have an easier time of reaching your target market, you’ll know the extra work has paid off.