How to optimize locally

This is one of the most asked questions online as well as offline by the people. And why don’t they ask? The main reason behind this is that most of the businesses are not related to information technology but they can be benefited with the help of localized search engine optimization.

Say for example you are a restaurant owner and people are looking for your restaurant on the web. If your restaurant are not on the web or you haven’t optimized your website on the web then you are going to loose a big customer base. Today people will first search for anything online before they actually go there. Google says that 97% consumers search for local businesses online. This fact can be enough luring to make a local online presence in order to increase your revenue.

Optimizing locally

There are various factors to consider for local search engine optimization. They apply to every business whatsoever the business is. Let’s discuss them one by one.

1. Citations – Now what the hell are citations? This kind of question came into my mind when I first read it. I am sure you also thought so. So citations are general references to your business on the web.

For example your business listed on Yellow Pages with all its details is called a citation.
Citations are useful for search engine optimization because they get to know that your business does exist. From reputed sources such as Yellow

Pages the chances of getting ranked on a search engine increases.
The more the citations the more your business will get ranked up. So make sure your citations are well-organized on web directories.

2. Reviews – People coming to your website for the first time will highly rely on reviews of your business and so the search engines. Getting good and positive reviews can help the business grow and nurture faster. Therefore search engines consider them to be a ranking factor for local businesses online.

To get positive reviews is not hard task if your services or products are better. Just ask the customers to leave a reply of their experience with you and it’s done or you can send them an email asking for a review after they have actually purchased your services.

Just remember one thing about reviews; people will first trust the people who have actually dealt with you.

3. The big listings – It’s very much important that you first list your business at the places on the internet which are highest related for search engine ranking. And guess what can be those places? Of course the search engines.

List your business on Google Places, Yahoo Local etc. Getting listed on search engines can be the initial step towards local SEO. We call it the big listings. As Google Places is a part of Google it is obvious that Google will consider this first for ranking your website higher.

Apart from this big and reputed sites like Super Pages can also be considered a good ranking factor.

4. The website – To get higher rankings in search engines apart from external factors internally website optimization can also affect.
To optimize your website keep the in the title of your website your city or state name. As people in local will search like “website design in delhi”.

The address with relevant contact details should be listed on every page of your website in the same manner on all pages. In fact the details on each and every place on the web should be as same as possible to get over all higher ranks.

You can also use the keywords relevant to your posts in the page having your name, address or phone number.
Starting a blog can be a good way to engage your audiences with any new up comings or any new aspect of your business.

And of course the social media is a great way to increase your audience base and even search engine rankings.

These were the factors that can affect your localized search engine optimization. If you think anything has been left out please post it in the comments.