When Marketing your business on the internet, search engine optimization is meant to give you an advantage over your competitors by improving your Google ranking meaning your search listing will be the first that users come across when searching for businesses in your industry. While this is still beneficial for small businesses, or those that offer a product or service in a specific local, there is another area of importance when it comes to marketing this type of business. Small businesses or local businesses benefit greatly from having a local listing – indexed content and a listing on the local search engines.
Local search engines are sites like Yelp, Google Places, Yahoo! Local (US only), and Bing Places for Business among others. These sites are online directories which cater to a specific region which can range in specificity from country all the way down to city or even neighbourhood. Local search engines and local listings allow users to search broad terms and come up with a results page with listings specific to their area.
For businesses, the benefit of utilizing local listings can be great in terms of the potential to grab the attention of new customers and bring them into your restaurant, hotel, or other business. Most local listings will include your business’ name, address and contact information, the URL of your website, hours of operation, price range, payment methods accepted, and customer reviews. All of this information will influence a user’s decision to patronize your business.
With local search engines, there are a number of ways for you to ensure your listing stands out over the listing of your competitors. Here are some SEO tips for Local Search Engines.
What ever your business type, if you have a location people come to you need a local listing!
The first step to making local listings work for you is to claim your listings. Sites such as Yelp, Google Places, and the like require you to login and create a profile for your business.
To achieve the maximum amount of benefit from a local listing, it is imperative that you fill out every aspect of your business’ profile. By thoroughly filling out your business’ profile you are giving local search engine users the most possible facts to consider when it comes to deciding where they’re going to go for dinner, hold an important business meeting, or stay while on vacation.
Filling out your profile adequately also allows you to utilize target keywords in order to guarantee your listing will appear in more local listings to users who will find your business most useful.
Long-tail keywords are usually phrases of between three and five words which correspond to a specific niche market. Some example of long-tail keywords will be things such as “affordable hotels in Tucson”, or “convention centers in south Chicago”.
Long-tail keywords can be used in the title of your business’ profile. It is important too to use these terms within your business’ description on your local listing profiles. Determining which long-tail keywords to utilize as part of your local listing description, will require a considerable amount of keyword research.
When it comes to your website and local search engines, it is important to create a page for each of the locations that you service. If you are a Pizza place with three locations, each location should have a separate page complete with name, address, business hours, description, etc. You should also claim a local listing for each individual location.
mobile devices and local search go hand in hand..pun intended! 🙂
Frequently, businesses have a single location page which lists all the names, addresses, and phone numbers for their business’ location. This limits your ability to maximize long-tail keywords as well as citations. Citations are like mentions of your business online and play a large part in your search engine ranking.
Search engine marketing and search engine optimization is a field of online marketing which is consistently evolving. Local search engines and local listings are indicative of this evolution. As such, local listings and optimization for local search engines is something that you cannot ignore for you business.
For over sixteen years, Guaranteed SEO has been aiding our clients in reaching their internet marketing goals by offering comprehensive SEO services and guiding businesses through their online marketing efforts. As the business of search engine optimization has evolved, so to has Guaranteed SEO. We can help maximize your business’ benefit when it comes to local search and local listings.
For more information on the services we offer, please contact us or call us toll free at 1-866-588-8282 today!
