SEO Tips for Businesses Targeting the Local Markets

From ancient to now days people usually have a great trust in their local business markets. For getting desired products or services people turn to the Internet to find local products, services, and establishments. Now that more and more people are browsing on mobile devices like smart phones and tablets, the information that they need is right at the tip of their fingers. If someone is in the mood for Asian food and don’t already have a go-to Asian restaurant they will simply type “Any Town Asian food” into a search engine and then choose from one of the results. No matter what industry you are in, if you are operating on a local scale, you need to have a locally optimized website. If you don’t, you will be missing out on a wealth of new business opportunities.

Here are some useful local SEO guidelines to follow:

Conduct National Keyword Research
The methodology behind how someone searches for your product or service is the same no matter where you are located. Don’t worry about the location when conducting keyword research. The location will be added later. National search volume is a good indicator of whether a keyword will be successful or not. If there are only a few searches for a particular keyword on a national level, that means that there will probably be none on a local level and it’s not a good keyword to target.

Keep It Simple
Normally, the website of a local business is relatively small. There is no need to try and “stuff” excess information into the content just for the search engines. That’s a spammy approach and will be a turn off for website visitors. For example, don’t create a new page of content to target every surrounding city or include a long list of zip codes in your area. It’s obvious that this is only for the search engines. Instead, focus only on the actual city in which you are located (or cities if you have more than one office location). 

Activate Local Profiles
Google, Bing, and Yahoo! all are permitting businesses to fill out local profiles that will appear in the search results for specific related queries. Providing basic information is free. Make sure that these profiles are complete, accurate, and verified. While you can’t control the position of a search engine profile on the results page, it’s still important search engine results page real estate that shouldn’t be ignored. 

Include Address and Phone Number
While it may seems obvious to include this information on a “Contact Us” or “About Us” page, this information should also be included on every other page, either in the header or the footer as crawlable text. Use a local phone number, not an 800 number. This information is important to have on every page because it confirms to the search engines where you are physically located. 

Utilize PPC if Needed
Since you have limited space and content on a local business website, you can use PPC advertising in order to target additional long tail keywords or other areas. This provides an additional outlet to get your brand noticed in the search engines.

The REAL Value of Keywords for Online Businesses

Keywords plays a great role for representing your business online. For SEO and online marketing keywords are the main weapons for making your website visible in relevant search terms by search engines. An important question in SEO is how much essential value resides in a specific keyword and your SEO campaign really has the potential to give your business a unique representation.

Write your blog around specific keywords. Not just any keywords, but those for which people are looking. If your keyword is only searched by 12 people a month, it’s time to move on. You can use the Google Keyword Tool for your research. If the search value and competition is high, you will have found a good keyword that will interest people. Devise one main keyword and two or three variations for each post.

Tips: Don’t get hung up with this step. If you have an idea for a blog post and you are having a hard time fitting in an exact keyword, write the post anyways if you know your audience will love it. You can do more keyword research for your next post. Focus on value first.

Important: Make sure your keywords are aligned with your audience’s needs. Don’t write about selling to businesses if your audience sells goods to consumers.

When it comes to bigger companies, for instance, can a massive SEO investment in trying to achieve top ranking for almost-generic, ultra-competitive keywords be worth all the disappointment and soul-searching. Surely, in so many cases, there has to be a better way.

At the other end of the scale are smaller companies with a limited marketing budget, particularly in the business-to-business sphere. There is often a fine balance to achieve when it comes to investing in SEO for what can only be low-traffic keywords in niche sectors, even where higher gross margins per sale indicate otherwise.

Realizing this, many companies will skip the online sales dance, or resign themselves to having a website that is little more than an 'online brochure' presence or a support mechanism for Pay-Per-Click or social media activities. Others, however, will persist in their delusion, often encouraged by SEO companies who - out of business self-interest - will over-promise when it comes to levels of return on investment (ROI).

Whatever the type or size of business which embarks on SEO, a first page ranking would likely be the original aim. Raw keywords, by definition, are the online thread running through everything a company does. To achieve sales inquiries based on effective keyword selection will validate its SEO involvement. Whether it delivers on ROI or not depends on many factors outside of SEO on the one hand - but also within the scope of SEO on the other.

Despite the voices of so many SEO companies, the down-to-earth reality is that the online sales process is, in its essentials, no different from the bricks and mortar process - except of course in the false expectations whipped up by SEO hype.

E-marketing Professionals Approach to Social Media

If you are a marketing professional, you likely don't live a day without being bombarded by messages about the importance of including new media, especially social media, in your marketing mix. From workshops by so-called "experts" who have been exploiting social media since before Al invented the Internet; to free webinars that result in a barrage of spam messaging, who has time to sort through the clutter and make sense of it all? Most marketers recognize the opportunities tied to participation in new media, but the question is how to do it effectively and strategically - in a way that makes participation worth the allocation of time and resources.

Why is New Media Strategy Important for a Modern Business?

The real problem for marketers is that a shift has occurred in how people communicate and where they interact with information and entertainment. Traditional advertising and marketing mediums are nowhere near as effective as they were three years ago. Here are just a few evidences of the migration to new media:

The Wall Street Journal has reported that advertising in US print directories is expected to fall 39% over the next four years "as people migrate en masse to the Web."

According to Wikipedia, the newspaper industry has shed 20% of its journalists since 2001.

According to Pew Research Center's Internet and American Life Project study, released in November of 2011, 66% of online U.S. adults use social media.

In July 2011, Knowledge Networks reported 38,000,000 people in the US age 13 to 80 said social media influenced their purchasing decisions, a 14% increase over the previous six months.

TOA Technologies estimates that 1,000,000 people view customer service related tweets every week, with 80% of them being critical or negative in nature.

E-Marketer has projected that by 2013 the number of US Facebook users will increase to 152.1 million.

COMScore determined that 176,000,000 US Internet users watched online video content in May 2011, an average of 15.9 hours per viewer.

Most of us are aware of the trends and shifts, so the question becomes one of how to adapt marketing strategies for effective participation.

How Can My Business Use New Media Effectively, Strategically?

Many marketers have reacted to the shifts and trends by rolling up their sleeves, reading books, attending webinars and seminars, and diving in here or there. While this is an admirable approach, many such proactive endeavors fizzle when the proponent realizes their effort requires objectives and strategies, and their communication needs to conform with the rules and etiquette of each medium in order to be effective.

While competence may be obtained on one social media node, such as Facebook, the vision blurs when it comes to how this competency relates to, or interacts with, other aspects of the Web presence - or the marketing strategy as a whole. In many cases, this initial fire gets doused by frustration or lack of directed time and resources, and the company ends up with a handful of inactive assets doing more harm than good for the brand and visibility of the entity.

The key to effective use of new media and social media in your marketing plan is a strategic framework that dictates the objectives of each web asset - both as an autonomous tool, and as a component of your overall web presence.

New Media Strategic Framework

When using new media in your marketing plan, it is crucial to understand that the Web has evolved into 3 basic levels of interaction;

Consumption Level: This is the original level of the Web. The hallmark of this level is company-controlled information about products and services. The consumption level allows companies to facilitate interaction through contact forms, information requests, or ecommerce. It has evolved into a final level of Web interaction that users utilize when they are ready to proceed with a final purchase or consumption decision.

Credibility Level: The Credibility Level of the web has evolved because users recognize that the content generated on the Consumption Level is company controlled. In order to get beyond contrived marketing-speak, users demand technologies such as YouTube, the blog-o-sphere, directories with rating systems, and consumer-generated satisfaction surveys. These tools on the credibility level allow users to form their product or service consideration set based on more transparent content such as video demonstrations, blog posts, consumer feedback, and satisfaction ratings.

Conversation Level: The advent and popularity of social media has led to the development of the conversation level of the Web. This level of the Web features content that is completely user-generated and, in fact, facilitates real-time questions, answers and critique with regard to products and services. The nature of the social media tools allows this conversation to get exponentially beyond one-to-one interaction - opening the floodgates of many-to-many communication. Consumers rely on this level of the Web for forming their opinions and brand perceptions - often prior to seeking information on the Credibility Level or Consumption Level.

In order to remain viable and relevant, it is important for businesses to effectively participate on all 3 levels of the Web. And it's possible to do so in a way that enhances company brand, improves customer service, and maximizes entrance into the consideration set of target consumers.

By organizing Web assets according to their level of interaction, it brings direction to the purpose and objectives of the asset. For example, recognizing that establishing a YouTube channel will allow the company to participate on the Credibility Level, directs the purpose of the channel - to establish brand voice, demonstrate expertise, and showcase experience.

Once content is generated on any one node of participation, that content can, and should be, integrated into other nodes. For example, once a YouTube video is uploaded to the channel, the same video can be strategically embedded into pages on the website, or can be utilized to enhance the value of a blog post, a tweet or fan page announcement. By leveraging new content across the Web presence, you improve the efficiency of your effort, and keep all nodes more relevant and active for the user.