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Local SEO Tips for Small Businesses

admin — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 13:10:23 +0000

Let’s face it; the average business owner has neither the time nor the inclination to learn the nuances of search engine optimization. When I was first introduced to the concept of search marketing, I spent endless hours researching forums and blog trying to separate the signal from the noise. There’s no shortage of information and advice for business owners out there in theinterwebz , but finding trustworthy and reliable sources is another monster entirely. I would estimate that I invested hundreds of hours researching reliable sources ofSEO and SEM information, and I am thrilled to this day when I discover new ones. This can be a daunting prospect for a small business owner, regardless of their current level of marketing knowledge. I know when I was trying to grow my first small business, I barely had time to eat and sleep…much less surf the web for hours on end.

The real key to local search visibility is to recognize that your location is your brand. In most cases, searches with local intent rarely reflect brand terms. In the research I have seen, most local searches are industry and/or service based with geographic qualifiers. For example, “boston emergency plumber” or “san diego pediatric dentist” are more likely to be searched for than “city name + your business name”. If people are searching for your business by name, that’s great! You’ve done a great job establishing your brand! But if your sole focus is on brand promotion, you are missing out on some great opportunities to develop relationships with new customers in your area. Recent research has shown that almost 40% of allinternet searches are local in intent. If you want to maintain a lead over your competition, now is the time to take action. The following short-list of actionable items will help get you started:

1. Get listed at all of the major local search engines and telecom directories. Start with Google Local and Yahoo Local. There are also services such as UniversalBusinessListing.org which facilitate your submissions to such sites for a minor fee. If you don’t have the time to manually submit your listings, this is an excellent option.

2. Get links from related local sites, industry associations, and the chamber of commerce. One thing to keep in mind is the importance of anchor text; the clickable words that link to your website. Ask your business partners to link to your website using the phrase you want to rank for as anchor text (ie. “boston emergency plumber”, if you are a plumber in Boston). You could even incentivize your suppliers to link to you in exchange for a discount, as the value of the links gained will far outweigh the short-term costs of discounting.

3. Get reviews from customers and/or suppliers. If you go to Google and do a search for “your industry +reviews”, you should come up with a decent list of sites that contain reviews of businesses like yours. Naturally, some industries are more popular than others. If you don’t find one related to your industry, consider it an opportunity and start your own review site To continue with the discount idea noted above, why not give your customers a discount for a favorable review? Note that businesses can be given reviews directly on Google Local, but you also want your reviews to appear on reputable third party sites like Yelp.com (for restaurants), TripAdvisor.com (for hotels, etc.) or RateItAll.com (for general consumer products).

4. Consider the impact of universal search. Universal search refers to the use of non-traditional media in standard search results. Search engines generally serve up hypertext search results. With the introduction of universal search, Google now serves up video, photos, news, etc. in addition to hypertext. Get your geeky nephew to help you produce a video for Youtube. Take some funny photos of the hijinks in your office and upload them to Flickr. Ask one of your industry bloggers if you can contribute an article to their site. Submit a press release. Write an article like this and syndicate it. The opportunities are endless, if you are motivated.

Jacob Davidson is happy to share his new found knowledge of search engine marketing with other small business owners. When he is not trying to stay abreast of the latest marketing and advertising techniques, he spends his time exploring the local yellow pages for new business leads.

SEO Company That You Can Lean On

admin — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 16:00:09 +0000

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Search Engine Optimization Tips

admin — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 20:56:03 +0000

If you want your web site to be on top of every important search engine, then it is vital that you learn various Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques that can ensure that your web site beats the hundreds of thousands of web sites to post. Here are some valuable tips on learning how SEO strategies.

The first and foremost tip is to understand the manner in which search engines work. They do not understand graphics but instead depend on matching the words in search criteria with the keywords that might be present in your web site. Therefore, you should make it a point to include as many keywords and key phrases as you can into your web site. Imagine the different key phrases that your viewers might type into the search boxes and try to incorporate them into your site. Even if you have included photos in your site, make it a point to attach text tags to those photos so that the search engines can understand them.

Your key phrases should also be mentioned in the URL and other related file names since search engines look in them. The title tag, which is on the top fo your html document, should contain the relevant key phrases as should your meta description tags. Your description tags will not be seen in your web site but will be featured in text form when search engine display their results. Thus, it is important to include phrases that entice the readers towards your website in your description tags. Although it is important to remember to not to just dump the same keywords and phrases in your URL, title and description tags and your file names since most search engines will interpret that as spamming and just reject your site. Instead, try to incorporate various related words that are similar to your keywords.

It would also be a good idea to check your standing after conducting some dummy searches through various search engines. This will give you a chance to fine-tune your keywords and key phrases. During this search, also try to find out the standing of your competitors and try to analyze the reason for their success in case they are placed above you. You should also ensure that your site’s internal links are crossed-linked perfectly since search engines will find it easy to latch on to the right page. Another important tip is to continually add fresh content to your web site since thei will please both search engines and even your visitors. The chances of your web site getting bookmarked will also increase if you keep on providing fresh information.

Patience is the key since once you have made the necessary changes to your web site, it will still take some time for search engines to recognize that fact and push you up the search ladder.

Make sure that your body copy is curtailed to around 300 words and that your keywords and key phrases are injected at regular intervals instead of just bunching them at the top or bottom.

If you keep these tips in mind and wait patiently, after making all the necessary changes to your web site, you should be pleasantly surprised to watch the search engines lock on to your site during any related search. Try out various new methods to ensure that your site remains on top since your competitors too will be doing their best to jump over you.