Local search is the Internet equivalent of being found in the found in the Yellow Pages. It involves marketing your business directly to your local area rather than competing against thousands of other businesses across the country or indeed the world.

One of the advantages of local search marketing is that you no longer have to compete against multinational companies with huge marketing budgets. By making search geographical, small businesses can ensure that they can get good SERPs (Search Engine Results Positions) within their local area. This offers SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises) the opportunity to find new business within their own communities without great cost.

But how should you take advantage of local search marketing?

Geographic Keywords: Choose keywords for your site that relate directly to what you offer your local area. For instance, if your business is a Pizza Restaurant in Leicester, you might offer delivery to specific areas of Leicester. Rather than just choosing the terms ‘Pizza Delivery Leicester’, which will have you competing with every pizza delivery service in Leicester, you should choose specific geographical keywords relating to the local area such a ‘Pizza Delivery Aylestone’, ‘Pizza Delivery Service Narborough’ and ‘Fast Food Delivery Braunstone’.

Geographic Content: Likewise, the content of your website should relate to the local areas. Make sure that you have a local phone number and address on your website. Ensure that the relevant pages mention the areas that your business serves in good quality content. Your site could include articles or blogs about anything local in order to increase the chances of being found within local search.

Google Maps: Google offers the ability to add a Google Map onto your website. By adding your business address to this, Google knows where you’re based and this helps with the relevance of your website to local searches.

Multiple Sites: Of course, it’s possible that your business covers several areas. It’s possible for you to get the most out of local search by setting up a number of optimised websites which each relate to a specific geographical area. Of course, it’s important that you do have offices or premises in that area in order to benefit from local search marketing, otherwise anyone could just create multiple sites for ‘Blue Widgets Chester’, ‘Blue Widgets Leeds’ etc and dominate local search.

AdWords: By using and targeting your PPC (Pay Per Click) Advertising to local search areas you can increase the chances that every click will be a potential conversion. It will also help to keep costs low and prevent people from Papua New Guinea increasing your advertising budget by clicking on your Ads.

Local Directories: By registering with lots of relevant online local business directories, you’ll increase your presence on Google, improve your chances of being found and develop your reputation in the local area. These directories also make being found generally easier.

Local backlinks: By getting other local businesses to create quality inbound links to your website, you’ll benefit from local search backlinks which are highly favoured by the major search engines.

Local search is still in its early days; it’s important take advantage of it now whilst businesses are still discovering its potential. If you need assistance, local seo services are available to help support this growth area.