The Local SEO Edge in Action

Search engine optimization is considered the voodoo science of the internet today.  Even more widely scoffed is the idea of a local SEO edge.  Local SEO edge is the idea that you can get your website ranked within the top few listings of all businesses that are local to the area your business is located in.  Confused?  All that means is that if you enter in a search for “Chicago beauty salons”, you would want your site to be listed on the first page.

In ongoing research, it has been established that most people will not go beyond the first 2 pages of a particular search to find what they are looking for.   A large majority of those people won’t even go beyond the first page of listings.  Logically, this means that if your site isn’t listed on the first page of search results, your site may not even be noticed.  This shows the importance of a having a good local SEO edge over other businesses.

So how hard is it to get the local SEO edge and have your site listed on the first page of a search result?

Let’s look at a specific example.  We at Local SEO Edge recently worked on a site for emergency plumbing in Portland, Oregon.  If you go to www.superpages.com, the web version of the phone book’s yellow pages, you will find 1635 listings for plumbers in Portland.  That’s a lot of people competing for the local SEO edge.  We took a simple site, and with very little effort, had it place on the first page under several different search criteria.

That means we ranked higher than almost 2000 businesses that were already established!

With one search, we even placed higher than the Google Places rankings.  Google places are the listings within Google itself that are used to show localized businesses.  These are usually characterized by the fact that they have a marker by them, making them easy to locate on the Google Places map.  Generally, these listings are ALWAYS the first ones listed, since it is after the Google search engine.

A good local SEO edge guru can overcome the Google prejudices of their own search engines.  We have proved that!

How is this possible?  Creating a local SEO edge is more than just a voodoo science.  Local SEO edge is an art form that has its own rules that must be adhered to.  By writing informative articles, using keywords without OVER using them, and creating good, clean links throughout the site itself, it is possible to get your own site listed on the first page of a search for your keywords.

And, as you can see, this isn’t a set of obscure keywords.  This is a very plausible keyword search.  When it’s the middle of the night, and your pipes burst, wouldn’t it make perfect sense to type in the phrase “Portland emergency plumber” or even “Portland Oregon plumbers”?  Of course it would.

This is the local SEO edge in action!

We took a set of keywords that could be commonly looked up and created the site to rise to the first page of results.  This will work for any business.  The way to capture the local SEO edge for your own site begins with site planning and good content.  There are many other factors that can help, and even some that can hinder the results, but www.portlandemergencyplumber.com got its own local SEO edge through planning and content alone.  Everything else is just icing on the cake.

Keep watching our blog to learn more tricks on how to get your own local SEO edge for your business.  And if you would like help with your own site and its local SEO edge, please feel free to contact us!

SEO Positioning

You can’t have a business in the internet world without at least running into the term SEO or SEO positioning. But what does SEO mean? SEO is “search engine optimization”.

What Does SEO Positioning Mean?

It means developing your site in such a way that if a customer enters in a search for something close to your business, your business site comes up on the first page of the search results. The higher your SEO positioning, the more likely people are to find you’re your site.

However, there is a bit of a catch. While you want your SEO positioning to be high, you really want to place high with your local SEO rankings.

Why Local SEO Positioning Is Key

Having high SEO positioning overall will get your site seen by people all over the world. Raising your local SEO rankings will ensure that customers in your area will be able to find you. This means that you are more likely to draw in actual paying customers.

So what can you do to get high SEO positioning as well as high local SEO rankings?

There are many ways to raise your SEO positioning, from blogs, articles, backlinks, and on and on. Those can be tedious, and sometimes take a while to achieve your goals. However, there are a few things you can do with nothing more than the title of your site to help ease this process:

• Include your location
• Include your business name
• Include your motto or slogan

Location:

Including your location in the title of your page will ensure that people searching for local businesses will find you. This is the first step in raising your local SEO. This actually gets overlooked more than you would believe. If you are looking for, say, dog grooming while on vacation in Medford, OR, you would probably go to your search engine and enter “dog grooming in Medford, OR”. This search will bring up a list of dog groomers, with the ones in Medford, OR being listed first. By including the location in your site’s title, you make it easier for people to find you when looking for businesses in your location.

Name:

When working on the title of your site, be sure to include the name of your business. This actually serves a couple of purposes beyond SEO positioning, such as name recognition (also known as branding). For local SEO, however, you are making sure that the engines that rank you know that you have a legitimate business and that the name of your business is associated with all of the pages on your site. This will definitely help raise your SEO positioning.

Motto:

A motto or slogan can be pretty much anything you want it to be. Why not let that work for your advantage when it comes to SEO positioning? Using the dog grooming example, let’s have a slogan that includes the most likely set of words (keywords) that customers will search for. “Best dog grooming in Medford OR” is a sure way to get your site noticed for anyone entering the keywords “dog grooming in Medford, OR”, don’t you think?.

That’s all there is to it!

While there is SO much more to SEO positioning than simply having a good title for your site, you can see that with just the few words you choose for your title, you will be starting on the road to raise your local SEO rankings. And in today’s internet world, the higher your SEO positioning, the more likely you will draw customers in.

Find The Right Local SEO Marketing

Company For You

Getting your business noticed on the internet has become a simple matter recently, there are literally thousands of SEO marketing companies that will help you have an internet presence. What this means in realistic terms is that you will be able to attract business from all around the world.

That isn’t necessarily the best plan for your business however.

If you own a business that is better suited to local customers, you will want to find a company that will help you with local SEO marketing. Local SEO marketing is the science of marketing your business on the internet, but at a local level. That seems self evident, right?

The Local SEO Marketing Transformation

How do we take our local business marketing campaign and turn it into a local SEO marketing campaign then?

The best way, without a doubt, is to find a company that will take care of all of the tedious local SEO marketing tasks for you. I wouldn’t recommend doing it all yourself, as you will probably be busy running your business. However, that isn’t to say you should just pick a random company out of the local internet hat either. There are a few things you want to ensure the company you hire knows how to do, and knows them well.

• Keyword Research
• Article Writing and Backlinking
• Content Management

Keyword Research

Keyword research is the key to local SEO marketing. In order to have a successful local business, you have to be able to bring in the local customers. The means knowing the words people are actually entering into their search engines in order to find what they are looking for.

Targeting and finding keywords is what the best companies do well.

While it would be nice if we could look over everyone’s shoulders when they are typing, this is unrealistic. So local SEO marketing specialists have developed the tools and knowledge needed to find out exactly what people type to search for what they are looking for. Ensure the company you hire knows how to find the best keywords to get your business noticed.

Article Writing and Backlinking

The more backlinks you have, the better you will place in the search engine listings. That is a simple axiom when working with local SEO marketing.

One of the easiest ways to get backlinks is by submitting articles. These articles all have certain structures and rules they have to follow. Therefore, when shopping for a local business marketing company, be sure to ask them if they know how to use articles for backlinks.

A good company will be able to help you with articles and submissions, but they will also know other ways to get backlinks. There is no right or wrong way to get backlinks to boost your local SEO marketing. If you hear of a way that another company gets their backlinks that sounds like a good idea to you, feel free to suggest it to another company you are looking at. Compare the 2 prospective companies to see which one is a better fit for you.

Content Management

Ah, the blog. Content management in these days often revolves around having a blog on your site. Much like articles, however, blogs and other content need to follow certain rules in order to achieve the results you want.

That isn’t to say you can’t write your own blogs!

A good local SEO marketing company can help you design and write your blogs to say what you want to say, while still maintaining the tricks necessary for SEO placement. Blogs are usually your personal touch to your business presence on the internet. If you want to write your own blogs, then go for it! Just be sure to follow the tips the company you hire lays out with you. Don’t be afraid to tell the company what you want the blog to say and have them write them for you, though, if that works out better.

Ultimately, find the company that is right for you.

Remember, from your end, the most important thing when working on a local SEO marketing strategy is time management.

Finding the right company to handle your local SEO marketing campaign should involve a bit of research. If you know some of what you are looking for in a local business marketing company, you will feel much more comfortable when time comes to hire one. By no means take this as a complete list, however. There are many other things needed for good local SEO marketing, including social media strategies, customer service, and the list goes on. When asking about the points listed here, be sure to find out what other services the prospective company offers.

Most importantly, be comfortable with your SEO Marketing choice.