Local Search Engine Optimization

1. Local Search Engine Optimization 

 

The first type is local SEO, which means getting listed in Google Places. We recommend small business owners start with local SEO, because it's the easiest and fastest to setup and start seeing results.
Recently, Google has made local business results much more prominent by displaying local business results at the top for millions of searches. For many searches, the local results are even more prominent than the regular "Top 10? results.
If you've been stuck on the sidelines and haven't been investing in SEO because you thought it was too complex or too expensive, you no longer have that excuse. It's much faster and easier to break onto the 1st page of Google with local SEO.
Here are the 3 main ingredients for a successful local SEO campaign are:
i. Demand
What keywords are your potential customers searching to find your type of business?
You don't need to guess. Google has a free keyword research tool, available here: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
ii. Relevance
You need to edit and optimize your Google Places page to make it relevant to these keywords, so Google knows to display your business listing when people are searching for your type of services.
C. Authority
You need to prove to Google that you're a credible, trusted business. And the 2 main authority ingredients are citations and reviews.

We created a step-by-step training program  that shows you exactly how to do all of this, so you rank at the top of Google's local results. Learn more about it here: SEO Courses

2. Traditional Search Engine Optimization ('Top 10? SEO)

The other type of SEO is the type you're probably already familiar with. We call it traditional SEO (or Top 10 SEO) because these are the techniques to get you listed in the regular (non-local) Top 10 results.
Traditional SEO is a little bit more complex than local SEO, but has the same 3 main ingredients:
i. Demand
You need to do keyword research to find what words your potential customers are using to search for your services. Same as with local SEO, use Google's keyword tool as the starting point.
ii. Relevance
You need to make your website relevant to your keywords. And specifically, you want to focus on 1 keyword per page. So, if you offer a bunch of different services, then you should have a page for each of those services.
iii. Authority
The main factor Google looks at when judging the trustworthiness of your site for the Top 10 results is your incoming links (or hyperlinks). Links are like positive votes in favor of your business.
If you include these 3 ingredients in your traditional SEO campaign (keyword research, content, and links) you will begin to rise in Google's Top 10 results and start getting more visitors to your website.

A Note About Building Links...

Most of the small business owners I've been speaking to have only been focused on getting reciprocal links by setting up link exchanges with other websites.
Reciprocal links can be OK, but in some instances they can actually be counter productive. Overall, link exchanges really aren't the best way to build links, so I don't recommend spending too much energy there.
You want to get a lot of different types of links to your website. And instead of focusing on link exchanges, you should focus more of your time on building one-way links to your website (where other website link to you, without you linking back to them). One-way links are much more helpful for building up your website's authority.
Why would another website link to you? Maybe it's because you are providing a helpful resource on your website. Or perhaps you write an online column for a local newspaper's website, and they let you place a byline link back to your website. There are many ways to build links, and that's outside of the scope of this post.

How SEO can benefit your Website.

In this article, I am going to detail some of the stories I’ve heard, which frequently tells more about some of the people in our industry, than it does about the effectiveness of search engine marketing.

PROBLEM #1 – “I rank number one in Google, and yet, I have never earned a cent from my website…”

When I first heard this story, I was very surprised… After all, if your SEO company did good keyword research, there is no reason why you should not be getting traffic and a few sales from a top ranking in Google.

I pressed for more details… I learned that the company who built the website also did the search engine optimization.

It only took a couple of minutes to learn that the website design company optimized this fellows’ website for the name of his company. There was no other optimization performed on that website.

LESSON #1 – It is rather pointless to optimize a website for the name of the company. UNLESS that name is a descriptive URL - "keyword rich url" The only consumers who will be searching for the name of your company are existing customers.

But, if your company is unknown to the general public, then the people who would like to buy your products or services will not be able to find you among your competitors.

If you sell widgets in Cape Town, your future customers will be typing “Cape Town widgets” into their favorite search engines, trying to find your business. And, if your prospective customers cannot find your business, your business does not exist in their minds.

PROBLEM #2 – “I had a company build a website for my business, but I have never received a single customer for my business, through my website…”

Are you sure?

Asking this question is not meant to offend you, but rather to get more details as to how you track incoming business.

If you are the average off-line business owner who has built a website to promote an off-line business, chances are real good that you probably have never received a single customer from your website.

However, if your website does not request for your prospective customers to let you know how they found out about your business, then chances are that people who did find you through your website would never tell you that.

If more than one person answers the phone at your business, chances are just as good that someone may have mentioned finding you on a website, but no one conveyed that information to you.

In your business, you should have systems in place to track and record where new customers have found your business. To do otherwise is like driving your car in the fast lane during rush-hour traffic with a blindfold over your eyes. At Scream Media we give all our clients a FREE Statcounter account with their own login.

LESSON #2 – If you are not asking your customers how they found your business, you will never know what kind of advertising is producing profits for your business and which advertising is sucking the wind out of your business.

PROBLEM #3 – “I spend a great deal of money on PPC listings (pay-per-click) to get my business in front of search engine users, because after spending thousands of Rands on SEO, I could not rank in the search engines at all…”

What keywords were you trying to rank for in the search engines?

“Travel. I have a travel business based in Cape Town  that caters to business professionals…”

Have you ever noticed the caliber of companies who rank on page 1 in Google for the keyword: travel?

Those are companies who spend millions of dollars per year to market their businesses online and off-line. Do you have a marketing budget that will allow you to effectively compete with Travelocity, Expedia or Priceline?

Besides that, where do the majority of your customers work and reside?

“Johannesburg of course.”

If that is the case, why would you spend your limited marketing budget to target consumers who would never buy from you because they are outside your local marketing area?

“I never really thought about it in that way…”

Most of your competitors are making the same mistakes that you are. That is to your advantage because when you start to market your business in a more realistic and cost-effective manner, then you will be able to compete with your competitors, while spending far less money than your competitors are spending.

LESSON #3 – If you operate a local or regional business, do yourself a favor, and stop trying to compete in the national marketplace.

Final Thoughts…

Listed inside this article are three lessons that could potentially help your off-line business to find new customers and to generate new sales, as a result of your online advertising.

Depending on the average ticket price of purchases in your store or service business, how much could an extra 20, 50 or 100 new customers bring into your business each month? You do the math.

You could spend the next ten years learning what we have learned to maximize the effectiveness of your online advertising. Or you could employ us to work on your behalf to support your local business in your local marketplace.

More consumers are ignoring their phone books and searching for products and services online. If you don’t want to compete for those consumers, your competitors will thank you.