Local SEO And How To Make It Work
I’ve been working on the internet long before it was cool to do so, and from about 1990, when it used to cost 20p per minute on dial up! Quite an expensive hobby! I write for a number of local sites around the UK, so thought it would make sense to include some of this useful advice around other areas.
So, something we get asked a lot about is localised SEO, so I thought I would write a few tips and advice for maximising the most from DIY local SEO. I’ve broken this down into 5 steps (and a 6th bonus tip!), there is obviously a lot more, but with this it’s a good starting point, and if all of the points are applied results will not be far away.
1) Make your target keywords local - so if your service is “wedding planner” and you operate in London, try and include all the local authorities and boroughs that you want to be noticed in, such as “wedding planner southwark” “wedding planner west London” and variations based on local search. Keep your national more generic keywords too, but the localised ones will also benefit you too.
2) Submit your site to local search - if you don’t already know one, find one, there are plenty of local sites that cater for small businesses in the local area - businesses are on there for a reason. Even if the sites look poor and don’t have a page rank, that’s not as important as people think, when you are targeting local traffic.
3) This one is very simple, but effective - display your postal address, and your business address (if they are different, or just one if the same) but once this information is indexed these words in your address are included in the information of your site. Simple eh?
4) Submit to local sections of larger search engines, don’t forget sites like Craig list, gumtree etc etc.
5) Get on the local maps section of google, this is free and is basic seo techniques, but many people don’t bother, don’t see the benefit, but for local traffic its important.
6) *BONUS* exchange links (and banners too if you prefer) with local businesses. Now this you have to be careful with, but if you keep the numbers to maybe 5-10 links it will be fine - try and keep the businesses relevant, so for a wedding planner for instance, include links to “chauffeur car hire”, “flower shops” etc, in the local area, can be very powerful. Just linking to some random local businesses can be good too - but SEO benefits more from relevant links, so if you are going to do it, might as well do it properly.
Hope some of you have found this useful!
David Andrew Thompson
BeHigher
Get your business higher on search engines!
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