Getting your website listed in Google local search is not that hard. It can be a very powerful tool to generate new leads for your company. Whether your business is limo rental or you own a restaurant you can gain from being to the top of the search engines. Listed are several steps you can take to ensure that you end up near the top. Having your listing there is free traffic to months to come.
The first step to local listing glory deals with organic SEO. This means that you have to tweak several factors on your actual website to really get the results that you are looking for. The first change that you will have to makes is to make sure that you address and phone number are listed on your site. While having it on your contact page is a must. It isnt a bad idea to place you contact info in the footer of every page on your site. On the contact page you will want to list your information in what is call hcard format. Google "Hcard format generator" to make it easier on you. While this is not a necessity, we have found that it does help.
Next you will want to claim your listing in Google. You can do this by searching for Google local business add. After you are done with Google, make sure that you do the same thing for yahoo. You can help your chances of appearing at the top by making sure that you include the keywords you are going for in the business name. for example, if you are Jones Brothers plumbing and you are in the Orlando market, make sure that your listing says Orlando Plumbing somewhere in the business name. Add as many videos, pictures, and descriptions to the listing as possible. Then go do the same for yahoo at listings.local.yahoo.com with no www at the front.
One of the things you can do to get a little bit of a boost is to pick an address as close to the epicenter of the city as possible in the eyes of Google (This is in the gray area of the ethics debate. We are not telling you to do it, but be aware that many of your competitors may be. Just get a P.O. Box near the middle of the city in the eyes of Google maps if this is for you.
make sure that you are using a local phone number for your contact info. This has a great impact on your local seo.
Next all you have to do is go out and get backlinks to your site. Here are some local sites to get links from:
1. Chambers of commerce
2. School websites
3. Other local businesses and services
4. Local listing sites
5. Trade organization
Don't forget to ask that they include your keywords in the link text when you ask them to link to you. Link text is how Google deciphers what the outside world thinks about your website.
