Local searches are rising as the Internet grows rapidly. You are about to learn about a few SEO techniques that will take you far in this business.
One thing you can do to get as much as you can from local searches is to make sure you're listed with the big names in the industry. This talks about Maps by Google and Local by Yahoo!. These two happen to be the most influential in this area, which is why you should try to get listed with them first, and then get on with the other things. Your aim of listing with these huge names is to get more search engine traffic, which will help you realize your goals. If you think that listing with Google Maps is hard, think again. It's just a small form, and then you have to verify that you are who you are either through telephone or email verification procedures. After that verification process, you'll usually have to wait about six weeks to see your site in the local search listings. You'll see that Yahoo! isn't much different, except the verification process is missing. With Yahoo!, you can make your listing look anyway you want.
Creating your own optimized classified ads is one of the easiest ways to take advantage of local SEO. This is an easy way to take advantage of the local searches because the search engines tend to favor such sites and when you use them, you increase the chances of driving direct local traffic to your website. Start out by listing your business on Craigslist because, out of all of the classified portals out there, it is the most popular. As a business, you should make sure that you're posting an optimized Craigslist ad on a regular basis. The ads you post should be targeted exactly to the market in which your business operates. Take care that your ad is simple and not garish. When you write your ads you should focus on your title because this is what will get people to read it. Use the keyword phrase and your city and state in your title. You might think of your Craigslist ad as a landing page of sorts because, if you pay attention, you'll see that often the ads on Craiglist are higher ranked than the websites they advertise. A smart strategy for your Craigslist ad is to use it as a means for sending very targeted traffic to your website, which should be your main goal. Besides that, there is also USFreeAds: it does not work as well as Craigslist but it can still provide you with a great response since it is a well ranked classified site. What you should be trying to do with your ads is to send as much traffic as you can to your major site either directly or by piggy backing off of the traffic to the site.
If your business has multiple locations, use a different landing page for each one. When you're going for local sites, remember that they don't like a business to have more than one targeted listing, but it's completely fine if the business has two different locations. Yet if you do this, each location should have its own distinct landing page that refers to the business at that specific spot. What you should avoid is having a home page or single landing page that gets all the traffic from more than one local listing. Dedicated landing pages work in your favor because they ensure that people searching for you will know exactly who and where you are. Taking care of simple elements like this can really give you better results.
The major search engines run local listing services like Google Places, Yahoo! Local and Bing Local, and claiming your profile is the first thing to do when visiting these sites. If you want to claim your profile on any of these sites, there are a few steps you have to complete to verify various facts about yourself, and this includes verifying your phone number and address. Many businesses never think to do this, so it's a simple way to give you an advantage in your marketing efforts. Besides that, upload pictures to these local site listings because they make you appear genuine in the eyes of the users by providing them pictures of your business. So to make sure this process goes smooth and people see good, worthy pictures, upload a few from your site. You don't have to use gallery quality photos (unless your business is photography), but they will be reflecting on your business, so they should have some quality.
You should also look for quality backlinks from high status websites in your area that will help you with the search engines. Seek out well known sites such as the chamber of commerce or Better Business Bureau, that carry a lot of weight in your area. Search engines can give you more ideas along these lines, so simply type in the name of your city plus "directory of businesses" or the like. This process will supply you with a number of websites that it would be very useful to get a listing from. This is another simple task that you can get a lot of benefit from.
Author Resource:
The author, Sam D. Mann is a care-free Internet marketer, forever aiming to achieve more today than yesterday. Go to this website for some great Affiliate Marketing News and read current trending Making Money Online products reviewed while you are there. Don't forget to write a comment and create a back-link to your blog
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