James Cope

A number of the small businesses I talk to work within a specific geographic location, but often over look the power of local searches.

My tips here are usually to make sure you include mentions of the area you operate in within the usual meta data of the site, and within the body copy.

Keep it local by including testimonals from any well know local clients, people will have more confidence in your services if they are supported by a good comment from a peer in the community, a business they have heard of, or perhaps someone they know.

Add your business to Google local, its free and easy and as more and more searches seem to be including local search results its a really good technique. More information on that at http://www.google.com/local/add/splashPage?hl=en-gb&gl=GB

Local business directories and council directories are good sources of traffic, consider tripadvisor.com if you are a B&B or a hotel, checkatrade if you are a service company. Also get links from any local businesses websites that you can build working relationships with whose customers may find your own services useful.

Those are a few to start with, feel free to chip in on any that are working well for you.

Social Bookmarks

Tags: Local Search, Search Engine Optimisation, Small Business

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009 at 3:41 pm and is filed under Google, Search Engine Optimisation, Small Business, Website & eBusiness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.