Google Local Search Optimization

Getting listed within the Google, at least within the local search sounds easy, and it is. Performing Google local search optimization is where people run into trouble. Like most things in the life, it’s easy to “scrape the surface” of a project. It’s a completely different game to go all in, knowing without a doubt that you’ll do whatever it takes to come out on top.

Google local search optimization will take some work, but I promise you it will be worth it. Think about, by optimizing your name, for local search, on Google, you’re ensuring that people that are looking for your products or services, and more specifically looking for them where you’re located, are finding you.

I was working with a salon in the Dallas, Tx area. There website is incredibly nice, but it’s all Flash based. For you SEO’s out there, you already know what that means, and for the rest of you, it means that this site is going to be incredibly hard to show up in Google due in part to the lack of text on the site. When Google bot visit’s the page, it has nothing to view, nothing to see, and thus doesn’t know what the site is about.

I decided to heavily pursue local search where by accident, they were showing up about 9 times a day, but only when people were searching for their business name. It was bad. I took action on all the steps I’ll cover in a minute, and within a month, they were appearing over 200 times a day for terms like “salon”, “massage”, “spa”, and more. There website traffic went up by over 400%, all from people looking for the services they already offer, in the area they already service. They were ecstatic.

Here’s what, with my experience I believe you need to complete in order to say that you are “Google Local Search Optimized”. (Not necessarily listed in order of importance.)

Google Local Search Optimization Tips

1. Use the Google Local Business Center – Here’s a case where Google gives you a platform to perfectly describe your business. It will tell you how complete it feels your listing is, allow you to describe what your business is about, add photos, videos, and even coupons. Use it!

2. Work on your site – Making your business more local is a big step in local search optimization. Google needs to see that your site is both relevant to the search term, but also relevant to the location. You’re site may have great information on your area of expertise, but remember, it is called “local search optimization” which means your site needs to be also be targeted towards people locally.

3. Get on “Yellow Pages” like websites – Most people know by now that the yellow pages are also an online search tool. By getting listed in the following sites, it shows the same name, address, description, and categories repeatedly. The more sites like these that you’re mentioned in, the better off you are for local search optimization. Here’s a quick list of sites that can help you in your local listing optimization (some free, some not):

YellowPages.com
SuperPages.com
Localeze.com
Yelp.com
InfoUSA.com
CitySearch.com
Brownbook.net
InsiderPages.com
BOTW.com
OpenList.com
iBegin.com
Kudzu.com
MagicYellow.com
TrueLocal.com
Local.com
CitySquares.com
Zipingo.com

4. Get listed on local sites that count – Try getting yourself listed on sites like the local chamber of commerce, your rotary club, lions club, local newspaper, visitors bureau, local directories. Do a search for “(cityname) business directory”, and contact whoever owns the list.

There you have it, four quick tips on local search optimization. I’ll go over the use of sites like Bing.com, Yahoo, and a few others over the next several days. Also, I’ve run into some issues before like your listing being flagged as spam. How do you get around this? I’ll write on that as well.

If you enjoyed this, share it with some friends. I’d appreciate it.

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