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Is Your Website Ready For Local Search Engine Traffic?Copyright 2004 John JantschI suppose the real reason for a local small business to have a website at all is to provide information for the local market, generate leads from local shoppers. Up until now too many small businesses have created websites more like monuments to their company name. If someone knew the name of the company, they could probably find the website. That was good to a point but what about those people who just know they need what you sell but they don't know anybody who sells it? What if, instead, local businesses began to think about their websites more like a listing in a phone directory. What if they began to build and optimize their websites with the primary intent of being found in their hometown as the leader in a category. Someone looking for "Farm Fresh Tuna in Upper Cutbank, Montana" is going to enter just such a search, right? Google and Yahoo both announced this month their model for tapping into the local search traffic. In other words they are now going to make it easier for web surfers that want to find an accountant in their home town to do so. Everyone knew they would eventually get around to this very lucrative market so now more than ever you need to prepare your website to be found in your town. More about local search at these sites. http://www.google.com/lochp - Beta site http://www.google.com/help/faq_local.html#what FAQ http://local.yahoo.com/u_s__states - yahoo local What I'm talking about today is "local" search engine optimization. In one sense the principles are the same as everyday regular search engine optimization but the way of thinking about them is a bit different. ~~~~~~ gEEk Term definition: Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the science of making sure web pages are "designed" in such a way that search engines can find, index, and rank them according to the value of their content. For those of you who don't know, there is an entire industry built around this science. ~~~~~~ In the old day the mindset was to create a website and optimize it for anyone looking for a certain topic. Local SEO focuses first on being found in your town....for a certain topic. Geo targeting is the key. When someone is looking for a veterinarian, they don't search locally (at the moment) for the name of your firm. Think in terms of a Yellow Pages directory. They go to city they are looking for and then the category and then the name of the firm to call. Local search is structured much the same. People who are looking for an auto mechanic online will search "Kansas City Auto mechanic" In order to win the local search game you must be able to win that type of search. There are no hard and fast rules and even if there were they would change but here are some things you need to begin to think about to bury your competition in the local search game. Title tags - Probably one of the most important info on your page anyway so make sure your title reads something like "YOURFIRMNAME Kansas City's oldest bakery H1 tags - Make sure that your keywords for your site and your geography have H1 tags - The Best Baked Brioche in Peoria, Il Content - Add your address and phone number early and prominently (not a bad thing for every page really) Meta tags - Opinions vary on the usefulness of these but there are some tags that may gain usefulness depending on how the search engines refine their methods. meta name="zipcode" content="64105,64113,64112,64110,64106,66207,66208,66210 meta name="city" content="Kansas City" meta name="state" content="Missouri, Kansas" meta name="ICBM" content="39.10246, -94.59009 City, State, and Zip code tags are pretty self explanatory but the ICBM one is a bit out there but kind of cool too. If you go to the GEOUrl Address Server you can locate the exact latitude and longitude of your business. That's what those two numbers after the ICBM tag are. (Of course I think that is the same system they use to target bombs.) Linking - Make your internal links local friendly - Instead of "Remodeling Projects" use "Omaha Kitchen Projects" DMOZ - The Open Directory Project is a directory of sites that are listed by human volunteers. It seems that getting listed here gives you high marks with search engines so you need to do it but make sure that you go for the Regional listings all the way down to your town. It is unlikely (and not very useful) that you will get listed for a broad category, particularly if you don't provide world-wide service. Go for the poodle clipping section of your town and you will have better luck. Other Directories - Another good reason to get listed in DMOZ for your town is that other local directories like Verizon's Smart Pages and SBC's Yellow Pages rely on these listing as well. By the way, get listed in as many of these phone book type of directories like Smart Pages as you can. Some are free and there is speculation that initially the big search engines will rely on these already built local directories. There...that should keep you busy About the author: John Jantsch is a marketing consultant based in Kansas City, Mo. He writes frequently on real world small business marketing tactics and is the creator of “Duct Tape Marketing” a turn-key small business marketing system. Check out his blog at http://www.DuctTapeMarketing.com/weblog.php Circulated by Article Emporium Online to Success Website Marketing Tips Let me show you how simple and easy anyone with little or no Internet marketing skills can make money online working from home. For years I have searched the Internet looking for ways to earn extra income, I have been sceptical about lots of programs that have guaranteed great ... The Color of Success? Color should be one of your first concern when it comes to website design. Colors creates mood. It is immediate and memorable. It conveys character, expresses intention and emotion. Colors play a vital role in website's impact. It reflect the message and identity you want to c... Easiest Way To Build Web Site Traffic Yes, the best and easiest way to build Web site traffic is to write articles. And save A lot of time submitting them. It is through well written articles and keeping your visitor wanting to learn more that you will see more traffic on your Web site. More traffic means more pro... Is Your MLM About To Go Bankrupt and Leave You Flat? Copyright 2004 Android Technologies, Inc. Introduction Investing in a legitimate MLM is probably the best way to ensure that your MLM is not going to go bankrupt on you. This is not always an easy thing to ascertain even when you have access to detailed information... Merchant Accounts: What They Can Do For You Congratulations! You created an impulse in a customer to buy your product. One small catch… without some way to take their credit card number, your sale is as good as gone. One of the most important ways to grab that sale NOW, is to have your own Visa/AMEX/MasterCard merchant accou... Top Five Reasons to do a Website Redesign Copyright 2005 Digital Media Works, Inc. Small business owners need to monitor whether their investment in a website is providing a good return. Are your products and services easy to buy? If they aren't, you are wasting time and money and probably doing more harm than goo... Is Your Website Ready For Local Search Engine Traffic? Copyright 2004 John Jantsch I suppose the real reason for a local small business to have a website at all is to provide information for the local market, generate leads from local shoppers. Up until now too many small businesses have created websites more like monuments to t... How To Find The Top Keywords Relating To Your Theme Copyright 2004 Jeff Schuman Have you ever wondered what people are searching for online? More specifically have you ever wondered what people are searching for as it relates to the theme of your website? Let's say you have a website built around the theme of music d... 4 ROCK SOLID REASONS FOR BUILDING YOUR OWN WEBSITE Copyright 2005 Robert Evans What is the point of having a website, you may ask, when the affiliate programme you have joined has provided you with your own web page to promote? This is a fair question. The answer has to be that with your own site - and of course your own dom... 7 Simple Steps To Profit Without Your Own Product Copyright 2004 Clifford Mee Most people do not succeed on the internet because they are selling products no one desperately wants. If you want to be truly successful sell only things that people really really really want to buy! Sounds simple? It is. ... 9 Razor-Sharp Strategies For Building Success and Adding Zeroes to Checking Account Balance Copyright 2004 Quick Turn Marketing International, Ltd. It's easy to get so caught-up in the day-to-day obligations of your business that you find yourself trapped in the present, regretting the past, and with no time to worry about the future. It's easy… and it's deadly. Copyright 2005 Judy Thompson One of our local realtors recently mailed an attention-grabbing postcard, stating YOU DON'T “SORT OF” WANT TO SELL YOUR HOME---AND WE'RE NOT ABOUT TO “KIND OF” MARKET IT. Duh --- how many online entrepreneurs do take that approach and only... Getting Quality Leads Through Targeted Traffic: Hot Lead Generation Tactics Copyright 2005 Jack Humphrey If you are one of the tens of thousands of people searching for quality leads for your business everyday, you know how hard it is to find the precious few perfect business leads among the junk leads people are selling. Below are some tips ... The Online Business Quandary Building an online business is about as simple as re-building the Coliseum. Type any combination of "online business programs" into Google and watch all of the latest get rich quick scams populate the search engine results. These companies are geniuses at Internet marketing, but ... "How to Protect Your Search Engine Placement by Keeping Up-to-date on Industry Changes" There's no denying it: Search engines are a dominating force on the Internet, with millions of people going online to search on their topics of interest every single day. In fact, it was revealed at a recent industry conference that in June of 2005 alone, 10.5 billion sear...
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