The first step is to make your site more visible by getting it to the top of search listings.
Anyone who has started a new website catering to the local market should learn all about local search engine optimization because this can make or break the future of the website and the associated enterprise. Everyone wants to be on first page but there is only one first page. Local SEO can improve your chances of having the name of your enterprise as the first on the list of local searches - the Holy Grail that all webmasters strive towards.
Google is not only the most popular search engine on the internet today, it is also the most visited webpage of all time and any webmaster would give off his right arm to show up on the top of a Google search result. Anyone who is searching for anything usually clicks on the first few links on the first page, so it is of paramount importance that your name shows up there.
Keywords - that is the first thing anyone will teach you about local SEO. Put in a lot of relevant keywords. For instance, if you own a realtor website, put yourself in a prospective client's shoes and think of all the possible keywords a prospective client might key in into a search engine like "mortgage" or "house for rent" or "house for sale" or "home for sale" etc.
Moreover include those keywords pertaining to local search namely the locality or county or city or street name and this is a very important step in local search engine optimization. This can be especially tricky in cases where you are selling a wide assortment of related products, like if you own an automobile accessory store, you have a lot of keywords to key in. But leverage the benefit of keywords properly and do not overuse them.
Mastering the art of local SEO can be tricky for some and professional local search engine optimization specialists are available if you find you're not getting enough results. Article marketing is another old local SEO strategy. Informative and well-written articles relating to the local market with links to your website will help generate more traffic, provided the article is impressive enough to generate that kind of interest.
But all theselocal search engine optimization tips and tricks are useless if your website itself is flawed. Keep it fresh and updated and have a layout that is pleasing to the eye and easy to navigate with less words and more graphics and eye-catching flash animations. Getting visitors to the website is one thing, keeping them there is another.