subject: Secrets to Getting Local Search Engine Traffic [print this page] The amount of local searches is more than at any other time in the history of the internet. You are about to learn about a few SEO techniques that will take you far in this business.If you dont already have a one you will need to get someone to create a website for you
One of the simplest SEO tips that you can take home is creating optimized local classified listings. This is a very easy way to use the local searches because the major search engines typically favor those kinds of sites when you use them and you will increase your chances of having local traffic get sent to your site. Start out by listing your business on Craigslist because, out of all of the classified portals out there, it is the most popular. Posting SEO'd ads on Craigslist regularly is something that you need to do. This ad needs to be directly targeted towards your chosen niche. The ad should be simple and not loud. Focus first on the title of your ads because this is what will get people to check you out. Your title should include your keyword phrase as well as your city and state. It could be helpful to write your ad for Craigslist the same way that you would write a landing page for your business because, often, the ads for websites will outrank the sites themselves in search engine results. The main goal you should have when you use Craigslist is sending targeted traffic to your website, which is just good strategy. If you want to expand your reach you can try USFreeAds; you won't get as good a response from it as you would from Craigslist but it is still a well ranked classified ads site so it is better than nothing. What you need to do is send traffic specifically to your best offer through these classifieds sites (though piggy backing off of those sites traffic is also an option).
One way to get started promoting your site locally is to claim your profile on popular local listing services, including Bing Local, Google Places and Yahoo! Local. All it takes to claim your profile on these sites is to verify your basic information with a phone call. Doing this won't take you long and it boosts your overall efforts at promoting your business. 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. Just find some good quality pictures from your site and upload them to give you a more effective listing. While these don't have to be professional quality photographs, you do want them to reflect well on your business, so they should be fairly good. depending on how effective your web design is good SEO can have a really dramatic effect.
It is also very smart to work on getting your company listed in the Yellow Pages directory (and other directories like it). YellowBook.com, YelloPages.com and SuperPages.com are all good directories. YellowPages.com, for example, offers businesses free listings online and they get more than one hundred million searches every month. At the same time, SuperPages.com supplies its business listings to the bigger portals like MSN and About.com. Their listing is free but is very basic.
All in all, if you use the SEO methods you just learned about, you'll see success in no time.
