Local Search Engine Optimization

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How does a local brick and mortar business advertise in this Internet Age? Traditional media (radio, television, newspapers) is expensive, and results are uncertain. Using the Internet as a marketing tool is cheaper than expensive media advertising. Reaching the target audience with traditional media can be tricky. For example, a hair salon in Rockford, Illinois wants to buy radio advertising. Who is their target group, and which local station are they likely to listen to? If the hair salon wishes to have a general clientele that means ads would have to be placed on all the local stations. The Internet works in a much different way.

How do people find a local business today? Using the hair salon example, they might look in the Yellow Pages. More often, though, they are using the Internet. It takes no time at all to enter “Rockford IL hair salon” in a search engine and view the results. Assuming the hair salon has a website that has been properly designed; it should come up in the first page or two of results. Designing a site to be found quickly by search engines is known as search engine optimization. Many national companies use this as a marketing tool to reach a nationwide audience. Local search engine optimization is this same technique applied to a local market.

How do small business owners learn how to use local search engine optimization to enhance profits? There are several techniques that, when used together, will optimize a website. Every page on the business site needs to contain local content. The keywords that the consumer will enter in the search engine to find the particular business must be studied. When the right keywords are found, they must be localized with the name of the city. These keywords need to appear in the domain name, title tags, meta tags and be scattered throughout the text on every page of the website. The site should be submitted to local directories such as YellowPages.com and Google Maps. Proper use of local search engine optimization techniques will drive local traffic to a website.