January 2010

This was adapted from a post on Local SEO in Iowa written by Andy Brudtkuhl for TechSentry

Here are five tips for improving your local internet marketing campaign. You have a local internet marketing strategy… don’t you?

If you don’t – sign up for our local web optimization webinar and get started as soon as possible.

1. Sign Up For Google Local

Since implementing Universal Search Results, Google has been using your location to provide local search results for broad queries. See my broad match query for “plumber” below…

Signing up for Google Local results is free and is essential for Iowa businesses targeting a local demographic.

Watch our Google Local case study on how a local restaurant made a sale from Google Local.

It is essential – and it’s free online advertising. You can’t beat that – do it now!

2. Target Local Keywords In Your Content

We always tell clients content is the best way to SEO (Search Engine Optimization) their website. When it comes to local SEO - simply appending City, State to keywords helps your ranking for local results. Here’s an example from our website…

3. Measure Results

Once you have signed up for Google’s Local Business Center (Step 1 above) you will have access to all kinds of data regarding local search results via the Google Local Dashboard. These free insights tools give you data to learn where your customers are coming from and what they searched for to find you. For example

Google is giving local merchants the ability to access data about how Web surfers arrive at a local listing in Google Maps, in hopes of figuring out why so many people in a particular neighborhood are searching for pizza.

This kind of information can be extremely powerful for optimizing your presence online…

“More people use online search engines like Google than any other medium to find local information”

4. Categories and Keywords in Local Listing

These are two fairly straight forward items for optimizing your Local Business Listing. The category is the classification your business has within Google Local. Back to our plumber example – if you have listed your plumbing company on Google Local, be sure to use the following categories: “plumbing”, “home remodeling”, “home repair”, etc. This will ensure that if people in Des Moines, IA search for plumbing you will be included in the local results.

Adding keywords to your listing helps too… Let’s say your plumbing company is called “Handy Andy’s” – when you add your business listing to Google Local, ensure that the keyword is part of the listing. In this example, you would want to use “Handy Andy’s – Plumbing Installation and Repair”. Instead of having a vague title that is the company name we have appended two keywords that we want to be findable on.

These simple techniques can have a huge impact in your local results placement.

5. Hone Your Advertising

Many times when working with companies to form a strategic plan for their website we bring up using Paid Traffic, ie Google AdWords. Most of the time we get the response “We’ve tried that already and wasted a lot of money”. In most cases this is 100% correct – but the problem wasn’t AdWords, it was the how the campaign was set up. If you are a plumber in Des Moines, IA there is no need to bid on the keyword “plumber” at $4.29 per click. Using this method of broad matching you are likely to run up a steep advertising bill very quickly while not reaching your target market.

Instead, try local based searches using exact keyword phrases “Des Moines Plumber” and use AdWords built-in geographic targeting system to ensure that your advertisements are being seen only by potential customers – instead them appearing to anyone in the world that searches for anything related to plumber.

If you are looking for more on targeting local online – check out our FREE webinar on local online marketing and advertising.

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