subject: Getting Your Website Ranked For Local Searches [print this page] As a marketer using local SEO, you really have to get into the mindset of someone in your target market who is doing a search engine query. A crucial part of search engine optimization is thinking like the customer. Whatever product or service you have, you need to ask yourself, what would your potential customers enter into the search box to reach you and purchase your product? Pretend for a moment that your store carries golf accessories and nothing else. Search engine users who type in "golf" are doing an extremely broad search and are mostly not going to be looking for what you have. Those who search for "golf balls" are not right for you either, as this isn't the kind of item your store stocks. 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 tend to target the same keywords everyone else is trying to rank for, the very top ones with the most traffic. The more you can think like a prospect, the better you can plan your SEO campaigns. Your ability to find targeted keywords will improve with practice, and you'll find more customers and you will eventually be able to rank for a variety of relevant keywords.
Another local SEO strategy that generally gets ignored is that you should try and mention all the other locations that you're serving in. This means that you should let the search engines know about all of the cities, counties and states that you serve with your products and services. How should you do this? You will get more attention from the search engines if you include the locations within the content of your ad than if you simply compose a list of bulleted places. The reason for this is, you're helping the search engines get more data about your activities and in what areas you're functioning. Your promotional and SEO efforts can be greatly assisted by doing this. The main thing that you need to keep in mind when working with local SEO is not to ignore any of these small tips, which might look simple but they give great results on the long run.
Another thing to always remember is to put your address on every webpage of your website. This is one simple factor that can play a major role in convincing the search engines to rank you better. What does this include? You must have the address, number as well as zip code for your business on each page you publish. This will reveal that you're going after local search and that's when your job becomes simple.
In conclusion, use the techniques you just learned about and you'll master SEO in no time.
