Search engine optimization (SEO) is imperative for small business owners to learn, especially when it comes to local search. Local search involves optimizing small business websites and/or blogs with the location involved so that people who are searching for products or services locally they will find them. Local search involves a great deal of study about the way people search for local products and services. An SEO professional who specializes in local search will study factors like:
- Targeting the Local Market
- Using Local Keywords and Keyword Phrases
- Local Optimization of the website code
- Local Social Media Interaction
- Local Marketing
To be found locally, it is important to niche down your reach to focus only on local issues. For instance if you have a local architectural firm and you want to do business only locally building homes for people who want a home worth $250,000 to $400,000 dollars then your marketing focus would be on people earning at least 100,000 a year to 150,000 a year who want to build a house. Therefore your search engine optimization (SEO) would focus on your city’s name, and the dollar amounts mentioned, and the type of product, or the type of keywords you’d research that your target market uses. You might also try to become active on social media networks where your target market visits.
You can do keyword research by hiring a local search professional or you can use a keyword research tool i.e. Google’s Keyword Suggestion Tool, WordTracker and others. These tools will give you suggestions for keywords that are related to your website and WordTracker will tell you their popularity as well. Once you have a list of keywords to use, focus on a few of them and then watch your website metrics (the numbers) to determine what words and phrases are actually bringing traffic to your site.
You may implement these keywords and keyword phrases in a variety of ways such as via content, via Meta tags, via title tags, via article marketing and via your social media networks. There are many different ways to implement the discovery of which keywords are the best to use to attract your targeted local market to your website and ultimately to your bricks and mortar business. Probably the most important aspect of your overall search engine optimization plan is implementing targeted content for your website via a blog or article directory. But, don’t overlook all the other ways to optimize your website for local search either.
Local Search Optimization
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Glennette Goodbread, Owner
Premium Web Design and Hosting
