The recent surge in small business service companies due to the economic downturn has resulted in an abundance of web sites looking for search-engine optimization in their local service areas. This has given rise to many businesses looking to cash in on the demand. Some of them are legitimate and others are not. In reality, there are several things that a small business can doto organically increase their search-engine rankings. The majority of them are free or low-cost and easy to accomplish without technical assistance. This is the topic of today’s post.

• The first local directory that you will want to submit your business to is Google Maps. In order to submit your company information here, you will first need to set up a free Google account. When the account is active, you can submit your company’s information to Google Maps. You can even add a discount coupon for potential customers.
• The second most important location can be found on Yahoo’s Local directory. Like Google, you will first need to get a free Yahoo account before adding your business to their Local directory.
• The third most important location for submitting your company’s information is on Microsoft’s Bing Live Maps. Like the previous two locations I have mentioned (you guessed it), you must get a free Bing account first before submitting your company to Live Maps.

Three other free locations to submit your company are Local.com, SuperPage.com and MerchantCircle.com. Local.com will try to get you to upgrade to their $50/month promotional package, but you are not obligated to do so. MerchantCircle.com provides a place for coupon promotions and a free blog. SuperPages.com will just get you some good local traffic.

CitySearch.com is also a good location, however with a base price of $20 plus a $200/month minimum charge for their pay-per-click’s, it is generally more expensive than most small businesses can justify. I don’t recommend them for that reason.

When submitting your company’s information to these local directories, you will need to keep a consistent look and format across all of them. Include your company’s name, address and contact information in as many free places as possible.

Regarding your website, make sure to add your company information to at least the contact and about us pages. You will want to also provide format variations on your landing pages ie. California and CA. If your target market includes more than one city, put a link for each area at the bottom of your home page and have separate versions of the home page for each location.

Every website has at least one page that has the highest traffic. This is usually the home page. Look at your Google Analytics reports to determine what page that happens to be, then put links to your local pages with anchor text from that page.

Don’t forget to use targeted filenames for the pages and include those names in the title and H tags for their page. Vary the names slightly, for instance use “ Chicago,Il” for the H tag, “best real estate sales in the Chicago area” for the Title and “best-realtors-chicago.htm” for the name

There are also several off-page SEO tactics that can help your local organic rankings. They include inbound links, anchor text and user testimonials. Sites that allow your customer’s to vote for the service they received from you by using stars is also felt to be of particular importance to search engines in ranking your site.

Follow these suggestions to boost your rankings in local search areas and watch your rankings soar. Get busy and market your website during the downturn to prepare your company for success during the recovery.

There has been much talk about search-engine optimization or getting found on the search engines under your niche market.  Additionally, small businesses are being launched at a phenomenal rates,  each with their own web presence.  In order for the small business with its limited advertising budget to be competitive, a critical need for website optimization exists.

Following are some Key Tips for making your website more visible to your customer on the world-wide-web.

Tip #1 – Add keywords & description ‘meta’ tags to all of your pages.

The keywords you use should be chosen with your primary target customer in mind.  They should be specific, not general.  For instance, instead of ‘website design’, you might use ‘custom website designs for small Business’ or ‘unique website designs for DFW’.   Each page of your website should have a unique set of keywords and description ‘meta’ tags.

Tip #2 – Give each page of your website a different title.

The title of the page should accurately reflect the content of that page.  You can join more than two keywords together in a title by using a bracket between them.  For instance, ‘Custom Website Design | Internet Marketing’, is an example of using two keywords together in a title.

Tip #3 – Write the content as if you are talking naturally to a real person.

Think about it, people want to read articles on the internet as if a real person is talking to them.  Make the context natural, not canned.  Thoroughly explain the ideas behind your topic on each page without making the reader skip around unnecessarily.  Don’t use buzz words or language specific to an advanced reader in the field unless your target customer will be knowledgeable in that field.

Tip #4 – After writing the content, go back and try to insert your keywords into the document.

When the articles have been written, find places where you can naturally insert your keywords n the text.  This will have the effect of putting the keywords there for the search-engine spiders to count without making your text unnatural to your readers.  Try to find a minimum of 3 places where you can naturally enter the keyword.  Then read the document again to make sure that it will still sound natural to your customers.

Tip #5 – Look for free listings that you can have in a directory of companies that offer your services.

There are numerous free directory services out in cyberspace.  Of course they would like for you to upgrade to their paid listings.  In fact they will remind you of this frequently.  However, you still add to your rankings by being listed in the free portion of their directory.  Many of the National directories like Yahoo, CitySearch and Google also have free local directories you can sign up for.  They will give you local placement in the search engines when a search is done on your keyword in that local area.

Tip #6 – Add ‘Google Analytics’ to your website so that you can measure your results.

Google provides a free service on their website called Google Analytics.  This service is completely free for anyone to use.  All you have to do is go to http://www.google.com/analytics and sign-up.  Then you copy the html to put into every page of your website.  Now Google will keep track of the traffic coming to your website and present it to you in a nice format.  You can tell who is looking at your website, where they are from, how long they were on your site, etc.

This will help you in changing up your website for greater appeal to your customers.

Tip #7 – Write articles and publish them in article marketing directories.

Article marketing is an efficient way to not only build your credibility as an expert, but also increases your search-engine ranking.  Inbound one-way links are crucial to increasing your SEO ranking.   At the end of your article, you can provide a link back to your website in the signature area.  This technique gives you double the benefits for success in online search-engine placement.

Tip #8 – Publicize your website using social media networks.

Social media networks not only give you exposure to large numbers of people, they can also increase the search-engine ranking of your website.  While you don’t want to blatantly advertise your website by using social networks, there are still ways to promote it by demonstrating your knowledge of your particular niche.  If you have a special promotion, you can always link back to the page of your website with the promotion information.

Tip # 9 – Launch PPC (pay-per-click) campaigns to advertise to your target market.

While a permanent pay-per-click campaign can be devastating on your financial bottom line, a temporary campaign can be very useful in generating some organic search-engine traffic your way.  In other words, it’s a great way to get the word out about your business and maybe get a few people to bookmark your website.  During the campaign, it is important to measure and adjust the ads on a weekly basis.  You will also want to try out different ads to get an idea of the needs of your target market.  This technique can also be useful in analyzing your conversions and editing the content of your pages.

Search-engine optimization is an ongoing task that all businesses must be engaged in.  The need is more critical than ever for small businesses to be vigilant in evaluating and adjusting their internet advertising campaign on an ongoing basis.  For more information regarding your online marketing presence, consider enrolling in one of our search-engine classes or having a low-cost evaluation of your website.