Whether or not you have a brick and mortar store, it is vital to ensure your website is ranked well in searches for your local area. What does this mean?

People aren’t just searching for ’widgets’ anymore, they are searching for “widgets AND my town” more and more trying to narrow their searches to their own neighborhood. Why is this?

People want to know whom they are dealing with online. They want to be able to visit your business location for your offerings, or at least have the peace of mind that they could if they wanted to.

For example, if you own a dry cleaning business, potential customers want to not only see your prices; they want directions and a map to get to your store. Even in the face of a global economy more and more people are realizing the importance of community and want to give their business to local merchants.

Here are some additional ideas to think about when adding your website to directories on the web.

Community: Yahoo! definitely excels when it comes to including community in local search. They are combining their Yahoo 360 social networks with local listings. The results are most helpful for people who wish to find information relating the their own area.

When you select a listing for a restaurant, for example, you will see all of the consumer-generated recommendations. If a recommender is in your group of contacts, a star is placed next to their recommendation. You know not only other consumers’ opinions, you know when those opinions are from people you know.

Mobile: Do not neglect the mobile search market. With the advent of systems like Verizon’s new technology and the BlackBerry, people search for the nearest theater using their hand-held device. Then they will search for that great martini bar that is nearby and open after the show.

Press Releases: Is your business doing something new and exciting online or offline? Are you you’re promoting it? Take advantage of free press releases from services.

Local City Searches: CitySearch is a major provider of local information for sites including MSN, Ask.com, Expedia.com, Ticketmaster.com, and many others.

Contact Information On Your Website: Have a physical address and phone number within an address tag at least on your contact page and one other page; the best option would be the homepage. By far the best option is to have your address on all pages of your website. Such information builds trust rank value for your website too.

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3. 10 Steps to Higher Search Engine Positioning

One Response to “Local Search Engine Optimization Tips”

1. Search engine placement specialist says:

   December 7, 2009 at 1:21 pm

   Nice information, many thanks to the author. It is incomprehensible to me now, but in general, the usefulness and significance is overwhelming. Thanks again and good luck!