by Jesse Kanclerz
Posted on March 10, 2010
|
|
Congratulations on taking the plunge into the world of local internet marketing. You've finally decided to stop throwing money at the Yellow Page black hole, and figure out how the internet phenomenon can boost your business. However, you may be a bit confused on how to start. After reading this article you'll be ready for some DIY local marketing.
Claim Your Local Listings
Do a search on Google for [insert your city here] pizza places, and in the top results you'll see a map, along with seven local pizzerias. This is known as the Google Seven Box.
You can claim your listings, by signing up for a Google Local Business Center account. Once you have you'll want to fill out as many fields as possible while optimizing your business profile to achieve maximum visibility.
Here are a couple optimization tips:
* If possible, add your important keyword term to the title. Maybe you're business is called Marty's Pizza, but an optimized title would be Marty's [insert city] Pizza. Also include your keyword phrase in the description. Later on I'll talk about choosing what keywords to optimize around.
* Don't use a 800 phone number, use a local area code number in the listing.
* Include pictures. Don't use generic file names like 0001.jpg but a more specific name like martys-cityname-pizza-dining-room.jpg.
* Encourage the vocal customers who love your business to leave a positive online review.
Once you've claimed your business on Google Local, claim other local listings on Yahoo, Yelp, Superpages and Merchant Circle. Similar rules apply, fill out as much as possible while optimizing for keyword terms.
Choosing Local Keyword Terms
Before optimizing a local listing, you need to know what phrases people are actually searching on. It doesn't help to optimize for a term that only 2 people search on a month.
Fortunately, there's a tool that can help the Google Keyword Tool. Type a phrase into the tool and it will approximate the global, and local number of monthly searches for keywords in your area. Try to optimize for local keywords that get at least 500 local searches per month.
Local SEO
You want to get listed in more than the map results. What will influence your results in the natural, left hand listings in the number of backlinks to your site, preferably from other local websites.
Excellent sites for backlinks include local chambers of commerce, business associations, and newspapers. Also helping out local charities could get you backlinks from their sites. What's important to remember is that you don't want the link to be your company name, rather the linked text should be the keyword phrases(s) you're optimizing around, so ask the webmasters of these sites anchor the links to your keyword terms.
There's also onsite techniques that will help you rank for local terms. For instance, include your full address on the contact page. Better yet, make it prominent on every page of your site - doing so won't help with rankings but it does make it easier for visitors to contact you.
Start a blog, but only if you can dedicate time to write at least once each week. Some topics that make great SEO fodder are talking about local events like festivals, and conferences that you attend, or the local charities that you support.
Local PPC
You can also buy placements on the right hand side of search results for local keyword phrases. Even better you can target PPC ads to only show in specific geographic locations, such as metro areas or even zip codes.
Under the settings tab for each PPC campaign, in the Locations, Languages and Demographics section there is an option to link your Google Local listing account to Adwords. Turning this on will display your business address in the footer of every ppc ad for that campaign. This is an additional relevancy factor that often increases click through rates for your ads, which will also decrease the cost you pay for each click.
You're ready for Local Internet Marketing
It's best to capture as much screen real estate as you can for local searches, with the techniques listed you should be able to grab the maximum amount of visibility, and a significant amount of new customers from the web.
Claim Your Local Listings
Do a search on Google for [insert your city here] pizza places, and in the top results you'll see a map, along with seven local pizzerias. This is known as the Google Seven Box.
You can claim your listings, by signing up for a Google Local Business Center account. Once you have you'll want to fill out as many fields as possible while optimizing your business profile to achieve maximum visibility.
Here are a couple optimization tips:
* If possible, add your important keyword term to the title. Maybe you're business is called Marty's Pizza, but an optimized title would be Marty's [insert city] Pizza. Also include your keyword phrase in the description. Later on I'll talk about choosing what keywords to optimize around.
* Don't use a 800 phone number, use a local area code number in the listing.
* Include pictures. Don't use generic file names like 0001.jpg but a more specific name like martys-cityname-pizza-dining-room.jpg.
* Encourage the vocal customers who love your business to leave a positive online review.
Once you've claimed your business on Google Local, claim other local listings on Yahoo, Yelp, Superpages and Merchant Circle. Similar rules apply, fill out as much as possible while optimizing for keyword terms.
Choosing Local Keyword Terms
Before optimizing a local listing, you need to know what phrases people are actually searching on. It doesn't help to optimize for a term that only 2 people search on a month.
Fortunately, there's a tool that can help the Google Keyword Tool. Type a phrase into the tool and it will approximate the global, and local number of monthly searches for keywords in your area. Try to optimize for local keywords that get at least 500 local searches per month.
Local SEO
You want to get listed in more than the map results. What will influence your results in the natural, left hand listings in the number of backlinks to your site, preferably from other local websites.
Excellent sites for backlinks include local chambers of commerce, business associations, and newspapers. Also helping out local charities could get you backlinks from their sites. What's important to remember is that you don't want the link to be your company name, rather the linked text should be the keyword phrases(s) you're optimizing around, so ask the webmasters of these sites anchor the links to your keyword terms.
There's also onsite techniques that will help you rank for local terms. For instance, include your full address on the contact page. Better yet, make it prominent on every page of your site - doing so won't help with rankings but it does make it easier for visitors to contact you.
Start a blog, but only if you can dedicate time to write at least once each week. Some topics that make great SEO fodder are talking about local events like festivals, and conferences that you attend, or the local charities that you support.
Local PPC
You can also buy placements on the right hand side of search results for local keyword phrases. Even better you can target PPC ads to only show in specific geographic locations, such as metro areas or even zip codes.
Under the settings tab for each PPC campaign, in the Locations, Languages and Demographics section there is an option to link your Google Local listing account to Adwords. Turning this on will display your business address in the footer of every ppc ad for that campaign. This is an additional relevancy factor that often increases click through rates for your ads, which will also decrease the cost you pay for each click.
You're ready for Local Internet Marketing
It's best to capture as much screen real estate as you can for local searches, with the techniques listed you should be able to grab the maximum amount of visibility, and a significant amount of new customers from the web.
Jesse Kanclerz is a Rochester internet marketing consultant who helps local and national companies drive business results from the web. Contact him to talk about using internet marketing techniques like search engine optimization and paid search marketing to jump start your business.
Print This Article|
Send To A Friend|
RSS Feeds|Read More Related ArticlesCOMMENT ON THIS ARTICLE...
Post them now in our forums for quick, helpful advice from thousands of members!
Use Local SEO for National Reach
Local Business Listing Marketing Services vs Data Services
7 Strategies to Drive Local Traffic to Your Website
Local Business Listing Marketing Services vs Data Services
7 Strategies to Drive Local Traffic to Your Website
SEO Articles
Internet Marketing Articles
Development Articles
General Articles
And also in our Archives
Internet Marketing Articles
Development Articles
General Articles
And also in our Archives
Drive traffic to your business and get recognized as an industry leader by sharing your knowledge on Site-Reference. Authors are given a wide range of exclusive benefits here at SR; so checkout what we can offer to those that…
We’re always on the lookout for new writing talent so even if haven’t written for the web yet, feel free to contact us anytime
We’re always on the lookout for new writing talent so even if haven’t written for the web yet, feel free to contact us anytime
Chiropractic Marketing writes: Local search is so huge right now. It's definitely the future of online marketing. Good post!
15:50:18 Fri Aug 6 2010 CDT
Kimber writes: Thanks for the tip on the Adwords selection in the local Google listing account. Also, the point on including your keyword in your title is VERY important.
17:24:54 Mon May 10 2010 CDT
chiropractic internet marketing writes: Right the point. Thanks for your nice information. As well as other marketing system chiropractic marketing system should be well defined, targeted and verified. The good news is online marketing tools are very easy to reach and have advantage.
6:04:08 Sun Mar 14 2010 CDT
Evelyn writes: Those are great recommendations that will put any business on the map. I wish I knew if I could do the same with our online business. Still, I will spread the word around so the local businesses can benefit from this listing. In this day and age, small businesses need all the help they can get.
Evelyn Guzman
http://www.homebusinesssteps.com (If you want to visit, just click but if it doesn’t work, copy and paste it onto your browser.)
7:00:27 Sat Mar 13 2010 CST
Jesse Kanclerz writes: I'd like to add a clarification to my article. I mentioned that Google's keyword tool shows local search volumes. Some people might construe this as the number of local searches in their city/town etc. When in fact, local means number of searches for that term in your country.
For example two people searching for Rochester dentists in Rochester, NY and Rochester, In would be included in that search volume estimate.
19:12:00 Thu Mar 11 2010 CST
Jack writes: Thanks for the tip on the Adwords selection in the local Google listing account. I totally missed that!
13:43:22 Thu Mar 11 2010 CST
Alex writes: Nice Question....
Move up for some SEOs, Blog-Marketings, Web-Developings, etc..
21:14:52 Wed Mar 10 2010 CST
Jeremy writes: Great first steps, just remember that your local listings are supported by CITATIONS like your site is supported by LINKS. So find places for your full business citation (Company name, address, phone number, website), and you'll start to see them listed in your local profile under the "Web" category. Ironically, these are mostly on "Yellow page" type directories...so you're not really getting away from them...just using the newest version more efficiently.
9:31:54 Wed Mar 10 2010 CST
Pages: 1