How Important Is Local SEO?

Search engine is not all about making it to the top. To get there, one must have an aim, a target. We all know the basics of SEO right? The keywords, headings, title, etc. but what people do not care about is where their page will land on search engine results. When you try to optimize a website with no aim the risks of waiting at a long time and wasting more money on SEO more than your ROI is high. For example, if your business is a law firm, you are not the only one that has a law a firm. So the competition is tough. How do we increase the chance and deliver results fast? We use local SEO.

The Role Of Geo-Targeting

Geo-targeting is a method of determining the geo-location of a website visitor and delivering content to the visitor based on its location such as country, region, state, zip code, organization, ip address, and other criteria.

That is why sometimes when we browse the internet, most advertisements or search engine results we see are closely related to our country.

What is the effect of Geo-targeting on SEO?

Competing with websites across the globe is a really tough one. What geo-targeting does is that it narrows the competition down from international to making it just appear in your country. In that way, you can outshine other websites because geo-location is first ranked.

Language is also filtered based on the website visitor. If we search for let's say a brand named "Hitachi". You will observe that even though it is a Japanese brand name, we cannot see any Japanese characters appear on our search engine results. If you are in Quebec, then the first result will be a Hitachi branch on your location. So let's take a look at your business for example, your business may be competing to thousands of business similar to your globally but if it is geo-targeted, the competition will narrow down to hundreds. The chance for your site to get popular rises from 1% to 30% and that is a very high chance.

This is also an advantage to those who only understands French because there will be a mix of English and French appearing on the user who lives in Quebec.

Local SEO Tips

Before you seek out SEO professionals to do local SEO for you here are some tips. This will take 30 mins or so depending on how well you know your business and website.

Know your Audience.

Identify your target audience. What kinds of people will you want to visit your website? If your business is about ladies shoes then your audience would probably women, if it is about games then children and teenagers are your possible visitors.

Think Like A Customer

Ask yourself the question, "If I am a customer, what would I look for when searching for my product?". Make a list of the words or phrases that a customer could use to look for your product. Then narrow it down to the possible phrase that a customer will use.

Use the above suggestion to make keywords out of it. Like for example your business is ladies sandals, so make sure you have keywords like sandals, ladies sandals, or be specific like hand-made ladies sandals and most importantly, add your location on the keyword (ex. Quebec hand-made ladies sandals) be sure that keywords must not exceed to five words.

Update Your Page Title.

Page title is one of the most important part in SEO. Page title is what search engines display when a user finds for a certain topic and this is also how search engines declare that the what the user is looking for is on your website. Make it specific and unique but not too long and too stuffed with keywords because it might confuse search engines and web surfers.

Make it also stand out from the rest. Do not copy your competitor's page title. Make your title be an exact definition for your website. Additionally, make every page of your website's title unique. To check go to Google then in Google's search box key in site:yoursite.com intitle"the words in the title"

Add External Links

This is a competition but not a war. It does not mean that your competitor online is your enemy. Make friends with them, suggest them to your blogroll, add as many external links as you like but be sure it is relevant to your business and contact them to request to put your link too.

Create Your Business Profile

For businesses, Google Places, Yahoo Local, and Bing Local can help create a profile, insert your address, phone number, and your website to create your business's web profile. Add pictures to make people trust you because people trusts businesses often when they see pictures of it. It does not have to be a professional picture, any picture will do as long as people can see your business.

Khemraj Meena is a freelance writer that writes anything that can provide knowledge to the readers around the world. He writes articles ranging from environment preservation, social education, finance and loans, money, and anything that he can think of. His with articles is that articles are an art. With good research, convincing details, and creative insights added with passion, articles can become a masterpiece.

On his free time, he writes blogs about his experiences on the freelance industry. You can visit his blog at http://www.seomanualsubmission.com to know more about what a freelance is. Do you have a computer with a reliable internet connection? Then jobs are just a click away.