{"id":820,"date":"2011-09-28T17:05:04","date_gmt":"2011-09-29T00:35:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.salesjumpstart.net\/blog\/?p=820"},"modified":"2011-09-29T04:52:59","modified_gmt":"2011-09-29T12:22:59","slug":"do-it-yourself-local-seo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/salesjumpstart.net\/blog\/2011\/09\/28\/do-it-yourself-local-seo\/","title":{"rendered":"Do It Yourself Local SEO"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"GoodSearch<\/a><\/dt>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Do it yourself local SEO.<\/strong><\/p>\n

As promise, here are the key tactics to make sure your local business is visible for local searches.<\/p>\n

First, make sure your web site and business is listed in the major search engine local directories. A great resource for this is www.getlisted.org<\/a>.\u00a0 This will allow your site to come up on the Google local maps, and the yahoo and Bing local directories for search terms that relate to your business.<\/p>\n

Make sure to completely fill out your local directories. Pay careful attention to the categories you choose. Each directory offers different opportunities, so take your time and fill them out with all the information they request. This process should take about 90 minutes all together, and it\u2019s the best 90 minutes you will spend on local search engine optimization.<\/p>\n

Second, make sure your local address is prominently displayed on your home page, with your phone number. Add it to your contact page as well.\u00a0 Also, you may want to search on Google for your business to see if you have any old listings online with an old address or phone number.\u00a0 If so, do contact the site or directory and ask then to either changed it, or delete it.\u00a0 Search engines hate conflicting information. Only use an actually physical address.\u00a0 Google doesn\u2019t accept P.O. boxes.<\/p>\n

Third, make sure (as in all SEO), your title and description meta tags have your main keywords in them.\u00a0 Also add your keywords to your headline of your home page.\u00a0 Don\u2019t over do this, make it natural.\u00a0 It\u2019s important that the search engines understand what your site is about.<\/p>\n

Now you have a good start!\u00a0 It’s time to get \u201cvotes\u201d for your site with the search engines. Votes are when other sites link back to, or mention your business on their sites. As search engine optimization becomes more and more competitive (lets face it, more businesses are paying for it then ever) and there are only 10 or so sites listed on the first page of a search, and the top three get the vast majority of the traffic, \u00a0in many cases you are going to need a lot of high quality votes.<\/p>\n

The first place to look is with associations you belong to.\u00a0 The B.B.B. is a great link, and so\u00a0 are many chambers and associations. Check and see if your listing has your web site on it.<\/p>\n

After that, add good local directories.\u00a0 Go to Google and search\u00a0 Your City <\/span>Directories.\u00a0 You will find a ton, and many will have categories that fit your company well.<\/p>\n

Plan on spending about 30 minutes a day linking for a few months, and maybe a lot more.\u00a0 Yes, that\u2019s what it\u2019s going to take..\u00a0 I could write a book about link quality (the type of links that pay off)\u00a0 and how to research for them, but if you are doing your own\u00a0 SEO, this is a great start.\u00a0 If you want several excellent researches you can subscribe to www.seomoz.com<\/a> , or SEObook.com<\/p>\n

I do want to leave you with two additional thoughts.\u00a0 A great start for back linking is www.metasocialweb.com <\/a> You can add your site,\u00a0 plus your blog, and all your social sites.\u00a0 It\u2019s a powerhouse SEO, Social media tool. Yes it does cost money,\u00a0 but you may find that many valuable sites do, because they are human edited (A big plus) and they have to pay to keep the site up and running.\u00a0 We\u00a0 built Metasocialweb.com to help small business with Social media, and it turns out to be great for SEO too!<\/p>\n

If you want a jump start on links every month you can subscribe to our Do It Your Self SEO package<\/a> that provides the information on \u00a020 quality links we have already researched.\u00a0 Or our starter SEO packages where we do the linking for you.<\/p>\n

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