Local SEO - What It Can (and Can't) Do For You

In recent times, Google publicized that they have included their key look for algorithm into their limited look for algorithm, merge the two so that limited look for results now show up within the usual results page. This makes sense when you think about the way mobile devices have changed how we use search engines. More and more people - about 20% of all searches, according to Google - are using search engines for location-based results. That means more people are heading to their laptops or smart phones to find and get directions to restaurants, bars, clothing stores, and more. But what does this shift towards locality mean for your SEO campaign? More importantly, what does it mean for your business? Read on to find out.

Local SEO is very important for any business that operates out of a physical, brick-and-mortar location. However, many SEOs - especially ones that put emphasis on paid placement over content-based strategies - are rushing to pitch local-specific SEO in place of global SEO. This is a reactionary attempt to appear ahead of the curve. Here are a few things to keep in mind when pursuing local SEO.

1. You're probably already doing it.

Still if your company doesn't do any trade online, you shouldn't dump global SEO for local. Why? Since when you seem at it, local SEO is global SEO. Location-based keywords are merely variations of the keywords for which you are already optimizing.

For instance, if you are trying to rank for "SEO Company" and you are based in Portland, Oregon, chances are you have used the phrase a SEO a few times on your site or blog. Additionally, if your company has a physical location you probably have your address on many, if not all, of your site's pages. In these instances, the web and SEO content you've created is already location-based.

2. Starting local SEO isn't rocket science.

There are a few specific tricks to local SEO, but it doesn't differ much from global. There are a couple of local directories and local search engine pages you will need to be a part of (Google Places, for instance) but the majority of local SEO work is simply including more location-based content on your website and blog.

3. If people like your business, they'll do the work for you.

A small but increasingly important part of local SEO is customer reviews. This marketing technique allows customers to share their experiences with your company and increases the number of back links and attention your site gets. Be careful, though; not all press is good press, and a negative viral campaign can happen if you provide a shoddy product or service.

Yes, local SEO is exciting, but you shouldn't drop your traditional global SEO campaign merely to hop on the local bandwagon. Include some more location-based SEO content on your site and blog, create profiles on local directories by internet marketing, and provide a quality customer experience and your local SEO campaign will fall into place.

How Small Business Can Take Advantage Of Local SEO?

Small businesses cannot hope to compete with large corporations when it comes to search engine page rank. It's just not feasible unless the small business is in a niche market where few large companies are competing. However, small businesses can make some significant advances in their ranking with local SEO.

Search engines and mobile technology often tailor their results based on the user's IP address or location. Local businesses will likely rank highly based on these considerations. That is what defines it as a local search. Local search results are promoted by search engines like Google as a way to present those people doing the searching with more relevant, local results. All of the major search engines account for the fact that people searching for a service or product would prefer local results.

Here's how a small business can implement local SEO and improve their business' chances of turning up in search results.

Site Design and Layout

The fundamentals of SEO still apply and any website should be configured with search engine optimization in mind. This means that the sitemap should be accurate and logical. There should be a blog or some form of Internet Marketing that incorporates keyword usage. And there should be plenty of social media links and opportunities for visitors to share content. The use of images and media is another way to boost SEO and traffic.

Local Search Business Sites

Local businesses should take the time to register across a host of business directory sites like Yellow Pages, Google, Yahoo, Merchant Circle, Yelp, Bing, and many others. Registering with these sites not only gets sites in front of their users, but they are taken into account by the search engines in local ranking too. The real challenge here is maintaining the contact information and making sure any changes get made across all sites.

Keyword Usage

Identifying both the target audience and the keywords they'll be using is of paramount importance in any Local SEO campaign. Businesses should use Google Keyword and other tools to help find the applicable keywords and then make sure they are adding the local component.

Contact Information Consistency

As mentioned earlier, any changes to your contact information should be updated across all the local directories for which the business has been registered. Search engines rely on a variety of sites to present the contact information and just because it's been updated on the main website, does not mean that's what will display in the search results.

Use/Promote Social Media Sharing

Social media continues to play a larger and larger role in search engine optimization. Engaging local customers through social media using tweets, posts, blogs, news articles and the like will create a local buzz around your business. Not only will people be promoting the business in their social media circles, but the organic traffic this produces will boost local search rankings.

The search engines want nothing more than to present users with the most relevant search results. Nothing could be more relevant than local area businesses. The steps highlighted above will help any business rank highly. Small business owners want to rank highly for local search, the search engines want local businesses to rank highly, and users want local options to rank highly. The small business owner just needs to make sure they are taking steps to get to the top of the local results.

Utilizing Article Marketing To Get First Page Ranking on Google!

You’re Keyword Distribution!

This is the most serious task of all about Article Marketing. If you do NOT perform a proper research on your keywords you will fail miserably. What you want to do is go to the Google Search and type in the keyword Tool. You will be taken to a page that will ask you to enter your keyword or phrase. What you want to do is enter a keyword phrase about the topic you going to write about. Once you get your returned keywords you choose those that have on average about 10,000 visits per month and use these in your article and mainly in the Title. You want these keywords distributed throughout your article and in the last paragraph. This is by far the most important step in Google First Page Ranking Procedure.

You’re Article Content!

Your next step is to write your article around these chosen keywords. Make very sure that you write only about these keywords and don't get carried away writing about something that has nothing to do with these keywords you have chosen. You want to stay on key and make this article content surrounds all these chosen keywords. When the search engine begins to crawl your content and finds all these keywords and your content wraps around them then you are going to get a high ranking because of your placement of them, and that's exactly what you want.

Let Your Article Be Seen By The World!

Now that you have your article written with all your keywords in place you want to show it to the world and the way you go about doing this is sharing it with social sites such as Dig,

Delicious, Face book, twitter, blogger etc, there are hundreds of site you can get the word out about your article. You can find forums with your niche and pass it on to anyone who is interested in hearing about your content. You can write a hub, all these are avenues available for you to get the word out about your article. These are links that are giving you more ranking with the search engines and this entire scenario the Local SEO has a huge role.