Not Global? Make Your SEO Local Friendly

 When devising a good internet SEM plan for a website, the location of the business and its targeted audience should be considered in order to make the best marketing decisions. When only operating in a particular local area, it is typically not necessary to attract customers outside of that area which should be reflected in any optimization efforts. Rather than wasting time and energy on global marketing efforts against other global competitors, community businesses will do much better by concentrating any efforts on reaching nearby customers, the ones who actually buy the product or service.

Location Is Everything

When marketing only to a regional audience, it is customary to use a town, city or other local name as part of the website's name or URL. That area name should be used as much as possible without overdoing it wherever possible, increasing the changes when indexed of being displayed for that query. Put location names in metatags, keywords and certainly within the body text. All content should of course remain readable and sound natural; however, the more places that the location is placed, the better it is for local SEO efforts.

Social Media Power

Social media has become one of the main ways to get exposure and increase SEO for any brand or organization wherever located. It is of particular importance on the local level as customers are more likely to share to nearby friends who may not yet be customers. This kind of viral exposure is invaluable for community businesses, since people who know each other personally are more likely to trust that person's judgment. Every community business should have a profile on major social sites like Facebook and Twitter, using them regularly to interact with local customers. Requesting reviews and testimonials on social sites and connecting to web pages is another great way to use social media to help community businesses.

Local Directory Listings

Google, Yahoo, and Bing all offer free business directory listings, which should be used by every small company. These business-to-business directories are the internet version of a regional phone book, providing listings where local customers can find necessary information. Such a listing also increases the odds that a company will come up on a query that automatically limits competition to businesses within the immediate area. Try to include a local company listing on any area directory so that no matter where people search, that local company's name will be included in the results. Be sure that each branch or location of the same business has its own web page so that each separate branch has its own directory listing.

SEO Research

Even though smaller companies typically market only to an immediate area, it is still important to keep track of general SEO efforts, such changes in methods and keyword popularity. Website analytics can show what terms are being searched and from what areas in order to increase ranking for a website; terms can always be tweaked for the local area. Of course, making global SEO efforts is perfectly find and can even increase the credibility of a regionally-centered business.

Locally Targeted Advertising

In addition to the methods mentioned above, paying for some locally-targeted advertising can greatly help SEO since such ads will only display when queries from within a predetermined area are placed. Resulting hits will increase page rank and return leads from the targeted areas where the buying will more likely occur.

The main idea of regionally-centered SEO is that there is really no reason to use larger resources than are necessary when concentrating on local efforts will likely get better results for small businesses. Of course, how well this applies to a business will greatly depend on the product or service being sold, thanks to the wide reach of the global internet market. Still, how much better it will be to reach the right people nearby who will be doing the actual purchasing than to reach the entire world that will not be buying at all!