Tips for Local Search Engine Optimization
IX Brand SEO helps small businesses with search engine optimization, online reputation management, and business process improvement. Located in Wharton, TX, IX Brand SEO works with clients throughout Southeast Texas, including El Campo, Bay City, Palacios, Richmond, Sugar Land, Houston, and Webster. Other clients are located in Virginia and Colorado. Call us at 979-531-8300 to visit about your business and goals for Internet marketing.
In my last post, I used my friend Daniel’s website, GreatWeddingDJ.com, as a case study for reviewing some general “how to SEO” tips. I talked about the importance of keyword research and the need to use your keywords in a smart way in your webpage titles, headings, and text. I also mentioned the issue of local search engine optimization tactics and that’s the topic I intend to cover here. As always, if you have a question about local business SEO, please give me a call at 979-531-8300.
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| GreatWeddingDJ.com |
Setting up your website to respond to local search traffic makes your local business much easier to find on the Internet. If you have a business that serves customers in a local area, you should develop an SEO strategy that’s focused on doing well there, and you do that by emphasizing keywords that people use in searching for local products and services.
Google and the other search engines treat some keywords as “local” and some as “global.” You should identify the keywords that Google treats as local for your business and use them to do the following things:
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| Google Places results showing M. Marcy Jones |
Set Up Local Business Listings. Set up local business listings on Google and the other search engines that respond to those keywords. Here’s an example of a local business listing in a search for “family law attorney lynchburg va.” My client, Marcy Jones has a Google business listing that shows up in the middle of the first page of search results. Note that the listing has multiple links to her website, plus her contact information, plus a map showing her location, and a link to her detailed Google Places business listing page. My advice to Daniel would be to set up a similar portfolio of local business listings for Google, Yahoo, Bing, Yelp, etc., because a Google search for “wedding DJ” works the same way — for me it brings up some Google Places local business listings for wedding DJs in the Houston area, since my search originated in Houston, TX. Daniel needs to have a listing in these results.
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| Google Places Listings for Houston Wedding DJ |
Emphasize Local Keyword Combinations in Your Website. Using the techniques I described in the last post, you should emphasize those local keywords — the ones that people use in searching for your services – with the names of cities or areas you service. For example, my client Blue Creek Whitetails is a trophy whitetail deer hunting ranch near Houston, TX. When someone searches for “trophy deer hunting houston tx,” the Blue Creek Whitetails site comes up about midway down the first page of search results. There are no Google Places local business listings showing for this search because Google doesn’t interpret the search as looking for a local business; however, keyword research shows that hunters do use search phrases like “trophy deer hunting” with place names. So it’s important to identify those keywords and use them with place names in your website. For Blue Creek Whitetails, you can see how trophy, deer hunting, and houston are all represented in the page titles and text of the website.
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| Google Search Results Showing Blue Creek Whitetails Hunting Ranch |
So if you have a business that’s services a particular area, you should really work to identify the keywords that people use for local Internet searches, for your business, and then take the steps I’ve described above to build your local business listings and set up your website to succeed for those searches. If you have a local business, focus your efforts on doing well in local search results!
Related articles
- Search Engine Optimization in Houston, TX (houstontexasseo.com)
- How to SEO Tips – Use Customer Reviews and Testimonials! (houstontexasseo.com)
