Optimizing your site for local search is very important when it comes to marketing your business locally. This is true whether your business is a brick and mortar or not. You cannot just stick up a website and expect people to come. You have to do what needs to be done to attract the specific traffic that you need. I know you don’t have much time in your day so please know that you can outsource every tip on this page and we will take care of it all.
1. Add local content — Create content that is locally targeted using local keywords, local slang, and local names for your product or service that are used locally.
2. Link locally – Ask complementary local services sites to link to you and you can link to them as well. While one way is better, it is also beneficial if you link to quality websites and services that are local to you. Just ensure that they are complementary to you and not competition.
3. Do local reviews — You can list your own products and services and have others review them right on your blog; you can also review complementary sites and services as well. The important thing is use keywords that are local keywords and phrases.
4. Use rich snippets – If you use rich snippets on your site, Google will pick it up and then those snippets will be listed with your links. There are various kinds of snippets such as micro-data, icro-formats, and RDFa which are machine-readable data that will display in a specific way. To learn more about this you can ask your web designer.
5. Cover local happenings – You can also write blog posts and articles about local happenings and occurrences that have to do with your niche. Sometimes it’s okay if it doesn’t have to do with your niche as long as it’s interesting to your target market and includes keywords and keyword phrases that bring in your targeted traffic.
6. Have a community calendar – It is a nice touch to create a community calendar that your audience can add events to and that you can add events to. Make sure each addition includes local keywords and phrases.
7. Blog about local events – Each time an addition is added it can automatically be parsed to the blog, thus adding even more local content to your website.
8. Interview locals for vlogs – Add testimonials from your clients and locals that come into your store or use your services to your blog. These can be in the form of text or even video.
9. Enroll in placeblogger.com – You can find local bloggers who might want to blog about your business or whom you may want to link to there.
10. Ask for local contributors – Ask locals to contribute to your blog. Just ensure they are not your immediate competition. Ideally, you’ll find complementary services who will want to contribute. In addition, contribute to their blogs.
Action Plan: Start at #1 and do one each week. And now I’d like to invite you to take advantage of our Local Search Optimization package. We do all the work for you. We even do keyword research to ensure your business description is keyword-rich. Click to learn more about our Local Search Optimization package. I’m here to help you if you need some professional assistance!
Glennette Goodbread, Owner
Premium Web Design and Hosting
