A Few Basic Local Website Search Optimization Tidbits

First things first go and claim your listings in Google, Yahoo and Bing. This will get you started out on the right foot. completely fill out our listing. Use a specific description, pictures, videos, coupons and your logo. This makes your local listing more trusted and will get you ranked higher right from the start.

Next you can get listed in all the internet yellow pages and local websites that cater to your service. Sites such as superpages, yelp, citysearch, localize, best of the web and universal business listings will kick off your effort to getting a good ranking in the local search results. Be aware those some of the services listed are not free.

A couple of more places to promote your listing would be local classified sites such as Craigslist, Backpage, Judy's List, Angies List or USFree Ads. People look to these sites every single day. They are trusted by searchers and may bring in more leads and business.

To get your listing to be trusted by your customers and respected by the search engines make sure you ask your website vistors to leave you reviews. Heck even ask your employees and friends to leave a review for you. Just be clued into the fact that searchers who see 50 great reviews with not a single negative review will know you are stacking the deck. So yes, even negative reviews can be acceptable and make you look human. No ones perfect and the consumers know that.

On your site make sure your business address and phone number are listed and match your local profile exactly. No 800 numbers, they make your listing look fake to the search engines. On your contact page have a google or yahoo map with directions. Put your address in the footer of every page. Just a few simple steps can get you ranking well in the local results.

Local search has turned out to be incredibly serious over the last year. Google, Yahoo, Bing, Facebook, Twitter just to name a few all have launched local avenues. With people performing more and more searches from their phones Local website search optimization is becoming a service the local business owner cannot ignore.

Follow these simple steps to get started but ultimately you will want to hire a Local SEO expert to make sure your local listings are optimized correctly.

By: Drew Barnes

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Drew is an expert in the area of local search optimization. Read more at his website www.turnuplocal.com