Getting Started in Google Local Search
The first thing to understand about local search engine optimisation is that it’s a completely different game than normal search engine optimisation (SEO). The success of your local search efforts in Auckland and indeed anywhere else depends on three things.
1. Proper keyword selection
2. Proper setup in Google Places
3. Gaining citations from major data providers
Local search is changing the game for those looking to market locally online, particularly small businesses. Whether using local search marketing or local SEO, the resulting impact on traffic and sales – online and off is impossible to ignore. Get it right and you might corner you local market, get it wrong and you’ll be left in the dust.
Google Keyword Tool is great to figure out how many people are searching for a keyword. The only problem is, if you offering catering services in the Auckland area, you can only serve your local market, and it doesn’t matter how many people are searching for “catering services” in Hamilton or Tauranga. So, how can you calculate how many people in your local area are searching for your services?
If you want to optimize your website, taking advantage of local SEO can benefit you in many ways. By optimizing your site for a specific area, rather than a more global market place, you eliminate global competition, you can target a specific niche, and in many cases you’ll attract people to your site that are ready to make a purchase. If you are in a highly competitive niche, this is one way to gain ground, especially in the search engines, where you’ll be able to gather traffic.
Local search is the use of specialized Internet search engines that allow users to submit geographically constrained searches against a structured database of local business listings. Typical local search queries include not only information about “what” the site visitor is searching for (such as keywords, a business category, or the name of a consumer product) but also “where” information, such as a street address, city name, postal code, or geographic coordinates like latitude and longitude. Examples of local searches include “Hong Kong hotels”, “Manhattan restaurants”, and “Dublin Hertz”. Local searches exhibit explicit or implicit local intent. A search that includes a location modifier, such as “Bellevue, WA” or “14th arrondissement”, is an explicit local search. A search that references a product or service that is typically consumed locally, such as “restaurant” or “nail salon”, is an implicit local search.
Local search sites are primarily supported by advertising from businesses that wish to be prominently featured when users search for specific products and services in specific locations. Local search advertising can be highly effective because it allows ads to be targeted very precisely to the search terms and location provided by the user.
Local search is the natural evolution of traditional off-line advertising, typically distributed by newspaper publishers and TV and radio broadcasters, to the Web. Historically, consumers relied on local newspapers and local TV and radio stations to find local product and services. With the advent of the Web, consumers are increasingly using search engines to find these local products and services online. In recent years, the number of local searches online has grown rapidly while off-line information searches, such as print Yellow Page lookups, have declined.
There’s no getting around it. Keyword research is a vitally important aspect of your search engine optimization campaign. If your site is targeting the wrong keywords, the search engines and your customers may never find you, resulting in lost dollars and meaningless rankings. By targeting the wrong keywords, you not only put your money at risk, you are also throwing away all the time and energy you put into getting your site to rank for those terms to begin with. If you want to stay competitive, you can’t afford to do that.
Keyword Density is a buzzword from the early days of SEO. Even though it’s not so important today in Google’s ranking algorithm, it’s still important to know what it is, and why you can have too much of a good thing.
Keyword selection is the basis of Search Engine Optimisation and is the first step in creating a website that works hard for your business. However keyword selection can vary greatly based on the type of Web site you require. Static sites (sites that are simple HTML pages and are not database driven) by definition are limited to a defined number of keywords, whereas, dynamic sites (sites that are database driven) can be optimized for an unlimited number of keywords. If your static site is planned to contain 5 pages, then the number of keywords is limited to five pages. We do not recommend optimizing a single page for more than five or six keywords, unless necessary. With dynamic sites it is easier to optimize for single or two word keyword phrases as well as plural and singular terms.
Naturally we believe that SEO is the best thing you can do if you’re serious about using the web as the place to acquire customers and transact business. In fact we can go on for hours about why search engine optimisation is absolutely fundamental to the success of any ecommerce website. But we’re all too busy for that, so here are 12 very concise points on why you must do SEO if you want the web to work for you:
Organic search engine marketing offers many advantages over, pay per click advertising. Although PPC might seem to promise faster ROI than SEO, but unless you have a monster marketing budget and can afford to do both, it’s actually a classic case of sacrificing short term benefit for long-term gain. Here’s why…
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Promoting your website isn’t rocket science, or even brain surgery. All it takes is a little understanding, a good Search Engine Optimisation company like us and some good old elbow grease.
Here the latest blog from our friend Seth Godin, which offers a lot of hope for those of us in the new web based economy. Read it and feel optimistic about the future!!!
Take it away Seth….
First things first. Set up a Google account – If you do not already have a Google account you will need to set up an account to continue -click on the link “Sign-up Now” and complete the rego form. Once your have established your account, login. Click on the “Sign Up” button and you are on your way. It is important to note before proceeding that you must be the owner of the website that you are wishing to track or have the permission of the website owner.
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A few weeks ago a flyer was handed to a friend of mine at the mall by a lady selling real estate. My friend doesn’t have any intentions of purchasing a house, but she read the flyer anyway and checked out the company’s website. The houses looked nice and the prices were reasonable but being a marketer herself, she was turned off by the typographical errors she spotted on the flyer and wondered why the color schemes in the flyer and the site were different. It just looked sloppy.
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