Julianne Wish, Member Contributions
Ranking for area specific terms can be a big boost to your business. Many people don’t think local SEO makes a big difference, but this isn’t the case.
The good thing about it is that it’s usually quicker to rank for local terms. This is because you have so little competition. While there might be tons of sites going for the keyword “weight loss,” there are significantly less going for the term “Orlando weight loss.”
So how do you get ranked for local terms? Here are four tips to make it happen:
#1) Use the keyword in your title and content
This is the most important factor in getting ranked. You should put the keyword at the beginning of your title, as well as in the content a few times. This lets Google know what the page is about. Therefore, it will make it more likely you will get ranked.
#2) Use anchor text to your advantage
When you do get links to your site, make sure the anchor text (the actual link text) includes your main keyword phrase. Google looks closely at the anchor text to let them know what the site being linked to is about.
So if you have one hundred links pointing to your site, and seventy of them say “Houston condos”, they will be able to surmise what your page is about.
However, you don’t want to have every single link to say the same thing. Google likes natural link building. So if 100% of the links say “Houston condos, they will view this as unnatural, and this may affect you in a negative way.
#3) Get links from quality sites
Every link is not created equal. Google puts more weight on the links from quality sites a lot more. Therefore, be sure to target legitimate sites for your link building efforts.
#4) Geo-tags
This is not a new strategy, and it’s been around for a long time. However, many internet marketers aren’t familiar with it.
Basically, geo-tagging is where you put metadata in your HTML code. This lets the search engine spiders know where your site is located. You can do the same for pictures you put on your site. This will help you rank for localized searches.
The metadata includes your latitude and longitude coordinates, and sometimes other variables like altitude. If somebody is doing a search with geotagging enabled, your site might show up.
While geo-tagging does work, you can definitely rank without doing it. However, there’s no reason not to use it, as it definitely couldn’t hurt.
The bottom line is, getting ranked for local SEO terms is a great way to get more business. Implement these four tips and you should see results from your SEO efforts shortly.
Julianne Alvarez-Wish is a military wife, mother, business owner, professional writer, blogger and legislative advocate. She is the Director of Communications for Our Milk Money, the Colorado State Leader for the National Association for Moms in Business and the owner of Buy By Mom and Buy By Mom Blog. She is the Colorado Springs Stay-at-Home Mom Examiner for Examiner.com. She also blogs at A Wishful Thought. Her passion, purpose and goal is to help parents work from home so they can be home with their children.
![Local Marketing]()
Julianne Wish, Member Contributions
What is local marketing, and why do smaller businesses need to engage in it? This means targeting people in your area.
Obviously many businesses can go after people around the country. However, others can only do business with local customers.
Restaurants and financial planners are prime examples of smaller companies that do business with only local people. There’s only so far people are going to drive to do business with you if you have a physical location.
However, if you have a business that lends itself to national customers, you can also target local customers separately. There are some people that would simply rather do business with local companies. Therefore, you might want to do some local advertising apart from your national efforts.
So how do you get more local customers? There are a number of ways that work. Here are four you can start with:
#1) Newspaper advertising
This is one of the cheapest ways to target people in your area. When done right, it can be effective.
The problem with it is that it’s very untargeted. The majority of people reading the paper will not be interested in your product. However, if even a small percentage respond, it can be effective.
#2) Yellow pages
This is another one of the “traditional methods” of local advertising. It’s been around a long time, and when done right it can again be effective.
#3) Direct mail
This is hands down one of the top local advertising methods. This is where you buy a list of people in your area based on certain characteristics. You can choose based on age, gender, income level, etc. then you would send out an advertising campaign to them.
This way, you can choose exactly who you want to focus on. Therefore, it’s more targeted than the previous two.
#4) Internet
Online advertising is another effective strategy to get local customers.
So how do you convert traffic into sales? Now that you know how to drive traffic to your offer, you have to focus on making sales.
Get their contact information.
This should be your main goal, so you can keep marketing to them. The average customer requires at least four to seven touches before they do business with you. Therefore, if you give up after the first contact you are probably missing out on the majority of your sales.
Track each advertising source separately.
You might want to track each advertising method, so you can tell what’s working and what isn’t. For this reason, you might want to send the traffic from each source to a different place so you can tell what’s working and what isn’t.
The bottom line is, local advertising can be effective when done right. Implement these tips, and you will get your marketing efforts on track.
Julianne Alvarez-Wish is a military wife, mother, business owner, professional writer, blogger and legislative advocate. She is the Director of Communications for Our Milk Money, the Colorado State Leader for the National Association for Moms in Business and the owner of Buy By Mom and Buy By Mom Blog. She is the Colorado Springs Stay-at-Home Mom Examiner for Examiner.com. She also blogs at A Wishful Thought. Her passion, purpose and goal is to help parents work from home so they can be home with their children.
Julianne Alvarez-Wish is a military wife, mother, business owner, professional writer, blogger and legislative advocate. She is the Director of Communications for Our Milk Money, the Colorado State Leader for the National Association for Moms in Business and the owner of Buy By Mom and Buy By Mom Blog. She is the Colorado Springs Stay-at-Home Mom Examiner for Examiner.com. She also blogs at A Wishful Thought. Her passion, purpose and goal is to help parents work from home so they can be home with their children.
Recent Comments