The principles of search engine optimization or SEO are certainly important for most local businesses as they are for national and regional businesses. However, the placement of local business listings trumps the organic search results for many Google, Yahoo, and Bing searches. So it is incredibly important for local businesses to claim their local listings and make them as effective as possible in building word of mouth. This the fastest, least expensive way for you to build Web visibility for your business.
If you have a local business, you should start your SEO process by searching for your business on several search engines — Google, Yahoo, and MSN — and with different key words that your customers might use. So for example, if you’re an insurance agent, search for that phrase as well as insurance, insurance broker, and anything else you can think of. Of course, you need to add the locations you serve in your searches.
You’ll see where your business ranks for local search, and you’ll likely see a version of the results listing in the screenshot above. This is the Google results listing for a restaurant search in Wharton, TX, and the Google business listings appear at the top of the organic results, ahead of the individual web pages for the businesses listed. So if you see these kinds of results for your business, you will understand the need to claim your business listings and keep them updated.
In fact, if you have a local business, claiming and then updating your business listings is probably the best thing you can do to enhance the search engine performance of your business. A customer looking for a restaurant will likely make a choice from this list without visiting the various website listings presented below it.
If you are the business with the most reviews in the listing, potential customers will naturally click the link to read your reviews and then click your website link to visit your site. Help yourself out by making your business the one that these potential customers will select by asking your regular customers to post reviews and recommendations for your business.
If you need help preparing your local business listings or you’d like to start collecting recommendations from your customers, please contact us.
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