How to Leverage Local Search to Get Traffic
How to Leverage Local Search to Get Traffic
Article by Eva Arians
Local SEO has become a hot new trend in the search engine industry because of the response it can get you. This article will share some practical SEO tips that you can use.
A good way to get the most from local searches is to go about listing yourself with the bigwigs in the industry. Of course this means Google Maps and Yahoo! Local. Listing with these huge names should be your first priority before you go on to something else. If you can list with them, the rest is downhill because the search engines and human searchers will always know where to find your website. Getting Google Maps to list you is actually quite simple. You just need to follow a simple process to complete the application, after which you will be either emailed or telephoned for the verification purposes. Once you’re verified, all it takes is a short waiting period of a few weeks for you to see yourself listed in the local searches. Google and Yahoo! are very similar in their application process, only Yahoo! doesn’t require a verification. Yahoo! lets you create your own business listing at no cost.
The plus point here is that the approval process is quick and doesn’t take weeks, unlike Google. If you can do this correctly, you’ll see targeted traffic in no time.
It’s a good idea to take advantage of services such as Google Places, Bing Local and Yahoo! Local, and claiming your profile is your first step on these sites. When you get into these sites, you’ll notice that there is an option to claim your profile by going through a few verification steps that includes a simple phone call to know if your address is yours and verify it. Many businesses never think to do this, so it’s a simple way to give you an advantage in your marketing efforts. Besides that, upload pictures to these local site listings because they make you appear genuine in the eyes of the users by providing them pictures of your business. Just find some good quality pictures from your site and upload them to give you a more effective listing. You want to portray your business as impressively as possible, so you should use quality pictures, though they don’t have to be perfect.
It is also very smart to work on getting your company listed in the Yellow Pages directory (and other directories like it). You can start off with some of these sites such as YellowBook.com, YelloPages.com and SuperPages.com. YellowPages.com gets more than one hundred million searches every month and they offer businesses free listings. At the same time, SuperPages.com is well known for sending their listed businesses to the major sites like About.com and MSN. Their listing is free but is very basic. Local SEO can do more for your business than any other kind of promotions.
About the Author
Eva website’s: Beaded Jewelry, Surefire Batteries, Butterfly Bracelet, Denman Brush
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