If you are new to the web game you need to understand that without SEO, Search Engine Optimization, you have very little chance of doing well in the SERPs. SEO use to be about keywords, but now businesses need to be concerned with local search, universal search, web 2.0, having a properly optimized web site and beating their competition on the web at a minimum. If you search the net for SEO and read about keywords please don’t think that this is all you need to know, because there is a lot more to it.

Local Search

You want your business to do well in your local markets so you need to optimize for those markets. This means you need to include your location and other cities you serve throughout your web site. You also need to include your phone and address. If you enter my business phone in Google, Yahoo or MSN my web sites come up because I included it in my optimization strategy.

A lot of clients think I am nuts when I tell them some of the things we are going to include in the optimization, but you have to keep in mind that there are two important goals: 1) show up for your services/products and 2) get your business name out there. Someone may come across your site while searching for something completely unrelated to the services you offer, but they saw you. If your site and copy are set up right they will remember you. They may become a client of yours a few weeks from now or they may tell someone about you.

Paying for commercials or ads is essentially the same. Many people see you, even though they may not need you at the time. The beauty of optimization is that you can promote your business for a lot less than the traditional methods of advertising.

Some Optimization Tips for Local Search

1). Have your phone number on every page (area code too). You can include your phone number in your title-tag (I do it on my contact pages).

2). Include your city and other cities you serve on every page, BUT in different ways. I use an assortment of sentences for my clients. Some examples…

• “We are proud to serve the Sarasota, Bradenton, Tampa and Venice communities.”
• “Our Private Duty Nursing Services are available in Sarasota, Manatee, Venice, Port Charlotte and Boca Grand.” (this sentence named the service and 5 cities)
• “We are honored to serve the residents of Sarasota, Bradenton, St. Petersburg, Venice, North Port and Englewood.”

Ok, so let’s say that I used these 3 sentences on 3 different pages. I have now added the names of 10 different cities/towns in a variety of ways. Chances are the site will show up in local searches.

3). Add a directions page! There are several reasons this page can be beneficial.

• Your potential clients/customers like directions and maps.
• It gives you another opportunity to highlight your address for the search engines. Bold it!
• If you have directions written out on the page you can include phrases like, “2 blocks past Riverview High School”. The search engines will index your site for an assortment of phrases you would have never considered. The beauty is someone will see it and this means another person has learned about your business.
• You can link to this page from other pages and use anchor text that adds to your optimization strategy. For example, “Click here for directions to our Tampa Web Design Center”. Two major keywords are in that sentence, “Tampa” and “Web Design”.

4). Use Google’s Local Business Center!!!! Google typically shows 3 (sometimes 4) local business results in local search results. If you business is listed you may have a chance of showing up in this list when the other results are displayed. Even if you don’t you will be in the “more results” and have an opportunity to gain more clients. Google also allows you to add a picture of your business, so people can recognize it.

Google use to display these results at the top, above the other search results. However, in the last 7-10 days I have been seeing the local business center results in the middle of the search results. Either way, you could be on the first page and this is important.

******TIP******- You can use your business name when listing your business OR you can use keywords like “St. Pete DUI Attorney” or “Sarasota DUI Attorney- Byrd Law” . I see many businesses do better with keyword phrases.

I recommend you also add your business info to the following:

• Verizon SuperPages
• Yahoo
• MSN
• Ask Local
• Local.com

I know a lot of people recommend many business directories, but I am not a big fan of listing a business in every directory and here is why- many directories have very high page ranks and an enormous amount of pages. So, unfortunately they may show up before your business does if someone is searching for you business name. It sucks to be on the 2nd page of Google’s search results for your business name while directories own the first page.

In Conclusion- Part 1

Well, this is just a VERY small post on the why you need SEO for local search. I could write for a week and maybe get everything in, but you never know. Also, I just want to mention that even if your business works on a national basis you need to optimize for local search. About 80% of my business is done on a national level, but the 20% that is local pays the basic bills. Twenty percent is twenty percent. Don’t rule out local work- they may not pay as well, but they pay.

Part 2 will discuss SEO and Universal Search.

Melissa Fach- SEO Aware