In a world where business competition is high, it is important that you market locally and get found in local search. This presentation provides you with ways to get started in local search. Bring more local customers in the door with these methods and help your business grow and thrive.
1. Get Found in Local Search:
A Beginners Guide
Brought to you by the marketing experts at
www.demandmart.com
2. The most important component of an online
presence for small businesses is the exposure to
potential customers – Just call it Getting Found.
Local search and local business listings are
increasingly important for this. Being the first in
your local market to get found by customers
searching for your products and services on the
Internet can give you a huge advantage.
3. As local search grows it is imperative that you take
the right steps to get your small business included
in local business listings so it can be found online
and more specifically in your local area.
One Comscore study showed that in 2008 36% of
searchers were looking for businesses within a 15-
mile radius of their location, and in 2009 that rose
to 42%.
4. Optimize for Local Search
• First you need to optimize your website for
local search.
• In addition to individuals performing specific
geographic searches, Google also tries to
present local results based on the geographic
area from which the person is searching.
• It is important to get a high ranking in your
local area.
5. Achieve a Higher Ranking
• Make sure that your location is listed in your title
tag. This is the short description of your business that
appears at the top of your web browser.
• Include your location in your meta-tag description as
well. This is the description that no one sees expect the
search engines when they are crawling your site.
• The meta-tag description is often the text used for the
short snippet under the link to a site in the search
engine results page, so make sure that it also describes
what you do as well as your location.
• Add your address and contact information to the
bottom of multiple pages on your site.
6. • Make sure your contact information is in crawlable text
– that is make sure the search engines can read the
text.
• Items are generally not crawlable if they are in flash,
iframes or images.
• If you are not sure whether its crawlable or not, a
simple test should work: If can highlight the text and
copy and paste it into Microsoft Word then the search
engines can probably read it too.
• Add suburb, area and neighborhood names into your
website text as naturally as possible.
• Research and include high-ranking local keywords in
the text of your website. You can research keywords
using a tool like Google.com/sktool.
7. Get Listed
• Getting your site listed in the main local search
engines, local business listings, directories and GPS
navigations systems is another strategy you should
employ to be found locally.
• It is important that you do not limit your entry to just
one site because the sites reference each other in
order to validate your information, and validated
information will rank you higher in a local search.
• Being included in as many local business listings as
possible will not only help you get found in those
directories, but also help you rank higher in local
search engines like Google places & Yahoo local
8. Where you Should be Listed
– Google local (Google Places)
– Yahoo! local
– Bing
– Yellowpages
– Superpages
– Local.com
– Info USA
• You can go in and add your company to these
sites on your own, or you can hire someone to do
it for you.
9. What you Should Include in the Listing
• Include your product/service keywords in
your title and description in your listing.
• Make sure you correctly categorize your
company.
• List a phone number that has a local area
code. Do not list a cell that is not from the
area or an 800, or toll free, number as your
primary number.
10. Additional Things you Can Do
• Create a blog. Talk about the company, the
industry, community events, and where
appropriate, use geographic specific keywords.
• Create links back to your site either through link
exchanges with other local companies or getting
listed in places like your local chamber of
commerce.
• Signup for and monitor the primary review sites.
These sites include Yelp, Citysearch and Angie’s
List. If you get a bad review you can reach out
and try to resolve the issue.
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– Provide an easy to use blog and newsletter tool
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– Send automatic email responses your customers