subject: Three SEO Tips To Maximize Success [print this page] Three SEO Tips To Maximize Success Three SEO Tips To Maximize Success
Target Your Traffic with Local SEO
If you have a local, offline business, you want to be well ranked in the search engine so you get local traffic. Let's take a look at a few local SEO strategies that will get your site ranking better.
The key to local SEO is to put yourself in the place of your prospective customers when they do searches. You have to understand how they think to be able to optimize your site for the search engines. Pretend you were using a search engine to find something you were selling, and consider what terms you would most likely search under. Let us suppose you have a store whose specialty is golf accessories. Someone who types in "golf" in the search field is probably not your ideal prospect, because this term is too general. If someone does a search for "golf courses," they are not looking for what you are selling either. Someone who enters "golf accessories," though, is a likely customer for your store, so this is the kind of keyword to be focusing on. Businesses trying to generate local traffic tend to overlook keywords that are relevant but not hugely popular. They are fixated on the top keywords that get most of the traffic, but that thousands of others are also targeting. It helps you to target the most effective keywords if you can put yourself in the customer's place. Once you perfect the art of targeting such specific keywords, you'll not only increase sales but also get higher rankings on multiple keywords. Most of the local websites out there have no problem with business owners asking clients and customers to post reviews (Yelp is one of these sites). Since this is an allowable practice and your local SEO can benefit from it why not start doing it? Make sure you let your clients know about this in as many ways as you possibly can. It doesn't have to be hard, just a quick "we'd really appreciate it if you could take a moment to review our company on LocalWebsiteOfYourChoice.Dot." You already understand that you won't be able to control what is written in the reviews themselves but just having them online will help build your business's credibility and make you look more reliable to new clients. Even if you are trying other things as well, make sure to integrate this tip because doing so can help your business exponentially.
You can also get back links from important local websites that have high value in the eyes of the search engines. You can start off by getting listed in the Better Business Bureau, local chamber of commerce website or find some more similar websites that offer big benefits. You can find such sites by Googling your city name along with the keyword "business directory." Once you have these sites, do what you can to get listed by them. You can easily locate these sites, so don't neglect to take this step. To conclude: local SEO is the way you need to go if you want to get more exposure.
