News
 7
Step Local Search Dominance Plan
Local shoppers are going online to find products
and services in your town - get found when they do!
By John Jantsch
Right now, in every community in America, increasing
numbers of people of all ages are turning to the
world wide web to find products and services right
there at home. This trend, known generically as
local search presents a huge opportunity for small
businesses who focus on winning in this arena. Below
are 7 steps every local business should explore
today in order to gain a competitive advantage in
their local markets. (Someone in your market and
industry will do this, why not you?)
1) Register with the primary local and social search
engines
Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, AOL, Ask, Local.com and
TrueLocal are all awaiting your information as they
build local search directories. Make sure you are
listed. Judy's Book, Craig's List, and Insider Pages
are sites building directories with user generated
reviews. Get in those as well and manage your online
reputation.
(You can get this done for you and get a local
profile page on Duct Tape Marketing gaining you page
1 results on Google for key local terms with a Duct
Tape Marketing Local Search Profile)
2) Optimize your web site for local search
Put local terms in you page titles - not Home page -
Kansas City Electrical Contractor
Put local terms in your anchor text - not Kitchens -
New York Kitchens
Put local terms in your H1 and H2 tags
Put local terms in your body copy
3) Put a map on your site
Google and Yahoo Map programs allow you to link to
maps you create. You can also use a simple tool such
as (maps.yourgmap.com) to customize a map for your
business. Make sure that you also include very
specific driving directions to your location or
locations so that you can include major streets and
landmarks creating more local content.
4) Check your InfoUSA listing
InfoUSA compiles lists for direct mail and
telemarketing but they also provide a great deal of
the directory listing information for many of the
smaller search directories. Search (Infousa.com) and
make sure your listing is correct and up to date.
You can also add things like your web site address
to the profile.
5) Add local content
You should create several pages of content on your
site focused on local angles. You can report local
news, talk about your firm's history in a town, give
an overview of non-profit activities, even report on
the various suburbs your staff hails from. Don't
forget to put your physical mailing address on every
page - that's local content too.
6) Add a Blog
A blog - not a free blogger one, but one that
resides on your domain - is one of the most powerful
local search tools going. You can simply post about
things going on in the community, school events,
neighborhood block parties, the local sports teams.
It's helpful if you can do this and post content
that is relevant to your primary business, but as
long as the towns and neighborhoods you want to
score well in the search engines with are in your
posts and titles, you will get some serious lift for
those terms.
7) Get local inbound links
The search engines give lots of credit for links
that are coming back to your site from other sites.
Go out their and find some local directories or
strategic partners that will link back to your site
but don't have them link back to your business name
- Joe's Pet Shop. Have them link back to your site
with a local search term like - Toledo's Biggest Pet
Shop.
John Jantsch is
a veteran marketing coach, award winning blogger and
author of Duct Tape Marketing: The World's Most
Practical Small Business Marketing Guide published
by Thomas Nelson. He is the creator of the Duct Tape
Marketing small business marketing system. You can
find more information by visiting http://www.ducttapemarketing.com
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