Google, Yahoo And Bing Local Optimization Secrets

Do you know that you can get a lot more traffic with local optimization? What exactly is local optimization and how does it work? More importantly, how can optimization bring you more traffic? We will explore these questions and more in this article.

What is Local Ranking?

Very often, search users are looking for specific places using their favorite search engines. For example, let's say you are hungry and you want to look for a good place to dine. You fire up your favorite search engine, and then punch in a keyword phrase like "pizza, New York."

The fact that "New York" is part of the keyword phrase tells the search engines something about your intent. You are searching for a specific place (very likely a business) that is located in New York City.

Traditional search results cannot give you what you want because you will get websites from UK, Canada, and all over the world. So the information is hardly useful to you. By entering the city, you are telling the search engine to limit the search to businesses that are located in this particular location.

The search engine will then return a list of relevant results - results showing restaurants or places that sell pizzas. You may then pick a place to visit from the map.

Local results usually appear right below the ads and above traditional search results. In other words, the results will appear in the top fold of the browser. A typical search will reveal 7 to 8 top searches. If you want to view more results, you can always navigate to the second or third page. Usually, most people will just visit the first 3 to 4 links.

Huge benefits for business owners.

Local listings provide huge benefits to business owners because the web visitors are super targeted. They are very likely to become customers because they are already actively searching for some product or service. All you have to do is to offer your goods and services to them via Google Local.

Many web business owners find it tough to compete in traditional SEO due to competition. The search engines are getting really saturated. Local listings becomes a great alternative. You can easily get to the first page of the search engines by having a well ranked local listing. So how do you achieve that?

Local optimization tips.

One obvious way to get a higher ranking is to get as many citations as possible. Citations come from web pages that list your business information such as address and phone number. The more citations you get, the more valid your business listing is from the perspective of the search engines.

In a way, citations are like back links. Each citation counts as a formal "vote" for your business. It's solid proof that your business is a real business that exist in that particular location.

There are literally hundreds of citation sources that Google, Yahoo and Bing use to get business data. Submit your URLs to as many of these sites as possible and get your business data out there.

The Secrets of Social Bookmarking for SEO

Secondly, there are a number of useful social bookmarking for SEO sites which dofollow links back. These websites are smaller in size and seem to appear and disappear a lot, so while they are not great in the long term, they are useful for a one time boost. Mind you, they won't be sending lots of traffic your way, but they are providing a backlink to your site: no more and no less.

By now you might know that most good social bookmarking sites place nofollow commands on links, meaning that these are not useful for SEO (Search Engine Optimization) strategies. So, you may rightly ask yourself if having a social bookmarking strategy is not helpful for getting top spots on Google. Is social bookmarking for SEO useless? Happily, the answer is no.

First of all, widespread exposition to your content on big sites can get you noticed on other, smaller sites that dofollow links. By having your work exposed on prestigious sites, you yourself gain prestige. Indirectly, this means links because people will not only read your current work, but will also be more likely to read your future work if you become a respected voice in your niche market.

But there is a more important factor to take into account and which has to do with SEO and its dangers. A recent change in Google's algorithm left thousands of companies in the U.S. floundering when they suddenly found they had dropped full pages on their Google rankings. They had gone from making a living to making virtually nothing in just one day. Social bookmarking can protect you against this. If you share helpful and important content on delicious or any other site, and your business is good, you can 'transfer' a portion of the community onto your site and make them regular clients. In this way, not only will you see a surge in revenue, but you will also protect your business against these sudden modifications in the Google algorithm.

In conclusion, social bookmarking for SEO is mainly an indirect process, but a useful one as long as you remember that content is still king and that you work patiently. By spending less than an hour a day - every day! - engaging users and luring them to your site, you will see solid long term results which will bring about a lot of positives for your business, making it more solid against the unforeseen changes that Google brings about.

I know, I just said content is king and some SEO's out there may be wringing their hands. But that's the whole point of a good social bookmarking for SEO strategy (aside from participation): sharing great content and getting it noticed by lots of other users and websites.