Local search is becoming more and more important as users turn to search engines to find restaurants, dental care providers, and just about anything that comes to mind.
Smart phones have contributed to this growing trend. As more gain access to these devices, local search will become more important your business, at least it should be, if you’d like to gain new customers. Who doesn’t like new customers, right?
Follow the three steps below to get a head start on local search and start dominating the competition.
Claim your local listings on Google, Yahoo and Bing
Claim and enhance your local listings on Google, Yahoo and Bing. It’s simple:
Mention locale in your website
Use your website to establish local presence.
- Make sure you put your business address in all pages of your website. Footer is a great place for this.
- Mention surrounding local areas in natural ways
- Perform keyword research, and build content and pages that speak to specific local search terms that are relevant to you. You can use tools like Google Keyword Tool and WordTracker to find key phrases.
Don’t just list surrounding cities, and just build pages that are not relevant to your or your business, though you are targeting search, make sure these content pages are helpful to your visitors. You get the picture, right?
Add your business to local directories review and ratings sites
There are multiple local directories and ratings sites you can choose from. You have to be involved in major sites, listen what people say about you and your company and engage with your customers. Some directories you must be present are:
Make sure you list your business name, address, website address and phone number accurately, and exactly the same way in these directories. Get creative with descriptions of your business. Add photos and videos where allowed.
There are much more you can do to improve your local search rankings, above steps will get you to a good start.