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P.O. Box 1157
Little Elm, TX 75068
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suburb of the
Dallas - Ft. Worth Metroplex)
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Ken!
7 Steps to Local Search Dominance
by John Jantsch
Right now, in every community in America, increasing numbers of
people of all ages are turning to the world wide web to find
products and services right there at home.
This trend, known generically as local search, presents a huge
opportunity for small businesses who focus on winning in this arena.
Below are 7 steps every local business should explore today in order
to gain a competitive advantage in their local markets. (Someone in
your market and industry will do this, why not you?)
1) Register with the primary local and social search engines and
directories. Make sure you are listed on site building
directories with user generated reviews. Get in those as well and
manage your online reputation. (You can get this done for you on a
local profile page - Local Search Profile)
2) Optimize your web site for local search. Put local terms
in you page titles - not Home page. Put local terms in your anchor
text - not Kitchens - New York Kitchens. Put local terms in your H1
and H2 tags. Put local terms in your body copy.
3) Put a map on your site. You can also use a simple tool to
customize a map for your business. Make sure that you also include
very specific driving directions to your location or locations so
that you can include major streets and landmarks creating more local
content.
4) Check your InfoUSA listing. InfoUSA compiles lists for
direct mail and telemarketing but they also provide a great deal of
the directory listing information for many of the smaller search
directories. Go here and make sure your listing is correct and up to
date. You can also add things like your web site address to the
profile.
5) Add local content. You should create several pages of
content on your site focused on local angels. You can report local
news, talk about your firm's history in a town, give an overview of
non-profit activities, even report on the various suburbs your staff
hails from. Don't forget to put your physical mailing address on
every page - that's local content too.
6) Add a Blog. A blog - not a free blogger one, but one that
resides on your domain - is one of the most powerful local search
tools going. You can simply post about things going on in the
community, school events, neighborhood block parties, the local
sports teams. It's helpful if you can do this and post content that
is relevant to your primary business, but as long as the towns and
neighborhoods you want to score well in the search engines with are
in your posts and titles, you will get some serious lift for those
terms.
7) Get local inbound links. The search engines give lots of
credit for links that are coming back to your site from other sites.
Go out there and find some local directories or strategic partners
that will link back to your site but don't have them link back to
your business name - Joe's Pet Shop. Have them link back to your
site with a local search term like - Toledo's Biggest Pet Shop.
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John Jantsch is a veteran marketing coach, award winning blogger and
author of Duct Tape Marketing: The World's Most Practical Small
Business Marketing Guide. You can find more information by visiting
http://www.ducttapemarketing.com.