Local SEO Tips - Strategy for Local Search Optimization

Geo listing is an important factor in local search optimization. Local web marketing is a good way to promote your local business. Local search is accessing "citations" throughout the web. Citations are basically references to your business and address from reputable sources, like Yellow Pages. Keep in mind that the point behind this is not to access links from these sources (though that can be helpful), but to have them list your address and business name.

Local directory sites funnel information to search engines like Google & Yahoo. It will be benefited when search engines crawls these local directory sites. Search engines will then review this data and its accuracy when determining your sites relevancy for a local search query.

I recommend the following points for listing your business into local business directories:

- Always add permanent and accurate data (Address) about your business to local business directories. The more often a search engine finds consistent information about your address, the more accurate and relevant it is determined to be.

- Try to add your business in as many reputable local business directories as possible. Remember to always keep your address the same when submitting your information, don’t use “street” in one address and “boulevard” in another.

- You can add your address listed on your website. It is a good strategy to add your address on every page of your website. The footer or blog sidebars are good places for this, as the information tends to stay the same as users browse your site, and this way you won’t get damaged or penalized for anything like keyword stuffing.

- You can also list the address twice on your website, listing an abbreviated state one time, and the full state name another time. This way search engines won’t confuse the abbreviation with any other common abbreviations, such as AUS (Australia or Austria) or MD (Maryland or Doctor).

- You should optimize the address you place on your website by letting search engines know that this is an address and not just some random words and letters. This can be accomplished through the use of microformats, which is code you can place within the address. Microformats are the type of code you see within Google’s Rich Snippets feature. By including this code around your address, you’re essentially telling search engines “Hey, this is an address and it’s important!”

* Here is an example of how the code would be used. You can copy this directly if you wish, and replace the standard information with your specific information.





- You can also help your customers (and yourself!) by providing driving directions from nearby cities. With driving directions you are not only providing useful information about how people can find you – but you will also be using local words, locations and phrases that people may query when they are looking for your type of business.