Local Seo Strategies

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Research shows that most search engine users are looking for real world results like a place to eat or somewhere to shop. These real world searches are usually local in nature with the user trying to find a business or other destination nearby. In order to optimize your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts, you must put proper emphasis on local search results.



Building an SEO friendly site

The first step to improving your local SEO efforts is to make sure that your site is well-designed for the users and search engines. Remember that users look at usability and search engines mainly read the text and code on each web page.



If you use fancy flash code to display your pages, the crawlers might not be able to recognize your keywords and content. Do not display important search terms like your business name and address in the form of a images or under frames and always think of the user while designing a site.



The business name, address and other relevant keywords should appear in plain text in the body of the web page and also preferably ...
... in at least one tag or in the meta description. The address is very important because it helps the search engines determine that relevance of the page to a specific location.



You may also want to include other keywords that help clarify your business location. For example, in addition name of the city, you might also want to include the name of the specific neighborhood, district or borough. The page title should also indicate the business location to achieve the best local search engine results.



Content is king

As with other forms of SEO, local search requires that your content is specifically focused and timely. Search engine algorithms tend to ignore content that is old and stale, so you must constantly update your site with new content.



A content management system (CMS) like WordPress can help you add content to your site on a regular basis in a form that is optimized for search engines. Remember that in order to stand out, your site should have unique content. Do not use articles from content farms because search engines like Google can easily recognize copied content and you may end up getting penalized.



Create content that will appeal to visitors and encourage them to come back for more. In order to improve your local search results, make sure that the content contains keywords that identify your location. Frequently use local geographic terms like river names, lakes, tourist spots, landmarks, etc.



Backlinks are always of key importance in achieving high rankings on search engine result pages (SERPs). With specific reference to local SEO, it is important to get backlinks from other local websites. The sites should rank well in local searches themselves, so that search engine algorithms can associate their geography with your own location.



Google Places and Maps

Google has an excellent service known as Google Places that allows businesses to create their own business listings. The listings are used in conjunction with Google Maps to help search engine users find local businesses.



One of the great things about Google Places is that the results appear at the very top of the first SERP page. Google uses a special algorithm to determine whether to show Google Places results for a specific search query.



SEO is long term

Do not expect to master search engine optimization in just a few weeks or months. Be prepared for long-term investment effort and investment. If you would like to learn how we can help you achieve top search results, please call us today for more information.