Friday 27 September 2013

How to Optimise Your Website for Local Search Results

Search engine optimisation can get your website seen by people from all corners of the world, giving you greater power than ever to market your firm on a global basis. But what if you want to specifically reach the people on your own doorstep? For some businesses, such as restaurants and local service providers, it's important to get seen by people in your immediate area, and there are ways of optimising your site to ensure that you get noticed locally.

Use local keywords
It can in fact be easier to rank highly using local keywords than with more generic terms. For example, there is going to be a lot less competition for 'bicycle repair in Liverpool' than simply 'bicycle repair'. Using local keywords also makes it more likely that customers in your immediate geographic area will find you. As well as using your local keyphrases within the natural flow of your content, be sure to also use them in your titles, meta descriptions and headers.
Utilise Google Places
Google Places is one of the most powerful tools for getting discovered by local users on Google, and it's completely free. Registering your details on Places makes it more likely that your site will show up for local searches, and enables the display of additional information, such as contact details and a map.

Submit your site to local directories
Submitting your site to local business directories can provide an additional source of incoming traffic, as well as giving the search engines an additional ranking signal connected to your geographic location.

Use a local domain name
If you're a UK based company, make sure that the search engines and your visitors know it by using a.co.uk domain name.

Target customers in different locations with landing pages
If your business services customers in more than one location then you should consider creating an optimised landing page for each area that will act as an entry point for each different area. For example, you could have one page targeting 'couriers in Southampton' and another for 'couriers in Portsmouth'.
Implementing some of the simple steps in this article can have a pretty fast and noticeable impact on your traffic and presence on the web. If you would rather leave it to the professionals, consult an experienced SEO Agency with a good track record in local search and speak to them about a campaign for your business. It could cost less than you think and deliver a real return on investment!

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