By Wayne Davies - SEO Specialist.
Google's aim is to show its users the most relevant websites for any given search term. In recent years, it has placed a great deal of emphasis on delivering search results based on the location of the person doing the search.
This is all well and good, unless Google happens to think your website is based somewhere else in the country. And of course, it doesn't necessarily help you compete with your competitors to get a top spot in Google.
In fact, what it means is that you and I need to be aware of yet another factor when it comes to our own search engine optimisation efforts. This article provides a number of SEO tips you can use to help Google understand your geographic location.
1. Register With the Google Local Business Centre
Google's Local Business Centre gives you a way to tell Google exactly where you are in the world. It can also be a quick way to get to the top of Google for a specific keyword without having to know anything about SEO. You can register here.
2. Submit Articles to your Local Best Of Blog
The Best Of is the UK's premier online local business organisation. And it's Blog offers you a way to establish yourself in a particular geographic region. All the usual SEO rules apply. As a result, a link out to your site will convey link juice with local context.
3. Free Index
Free Index is among the UK's leading free online business directories. It's approach is SEO friendly, and helps boost your ranking for local search in Google. Even better, the system forces a person to write in a manner that delivers SEO value.
4. Include Your Business Address
Make sure your business address appears as regular text on both the home and contact page on your website.
Some sites have the address listed on every page, either at the top or bottom to suit the page design. It's worth noting that some SEO sources claim Google ignores header and footer text that repeats on every page.
Your address must be text - not a graphic or Flash component. Google can't read text in images, and it's ability to extract readable text from Flash is hotly debated within the SEO community.
My view is that regular text is the safest course of action when doing search engine optimisation.
5. Add a Webpage that Celebrates Your Local Area
Is there something special about your local area? Why not create a page about it, and publish on your site? Google will index it, and this helps associate you with the area.
This may even serve a purpose beyond SEO if you can find a legitimate business tie in.
6. Local Online Business Directories
Many areas have their own local directories that offer listings only to businesses based in the area. Use Google to try and find them, and get your business listed.
Search engines will note the listing, follow the link, and that will strengthen your site's ranking for local searches.
7. Local Online Classified Sites
As with local business directories, there are also free local classified sites. Use Google to find sites near you, and get your site listed.
National Classified sites may offer a geographic category that essentially serves the same purpose. For example, Viva Street separates ads into geographic regions.
8. Keyword Analysis
Search engines don't really understand the words they see on a page. Instead they look at the frequency with which words appear on a page. A good keyword tool, such as the one found in SEO Quake, offers a report that tells you which words stand out on the page.
You can use this tool to make sure search engines see enough occurrences of your main keyword to ensure your site is likely to show up in local searches.
9. Get Local SEO Links
Links back to your site are one of SEO's main tools. Their purpose is to boost the credibility of your site in the 'mind' of a search engine. Getting links back to your site is realatively easy, and this article gives you 66 different ways to go about it.
From a local perspective, it will be useful to get links from other sites in your area. Be sure to keep this in mind when considering the ideas in the above (66 ways) article.
10. Learn about SEO
There's a lot more to search engine optimisation than can possibly be covered in this article. That's why it's useful to take an SEO training course and find out how to optimise your own site.
The DIY SEO Seminar teaches 3 simple steps you can do yourself to get your site to the top of search engines. It's designed for non-technical business owners that want to achieve one of the following...
