Jul 14 2011

How Can Local Businesses Leverage the Power of SEO?

Most local business owners are often confronted with the teething problem of how to gain maximum exposure for their business online. Online marketing is a sphere that is mostly dominated by the big wigs with the most resources. In such a scenario how does a local business compete and gain a foothold without being dwarfed by the hot shots in the industry? In this article we shall provide you with valuable SEO tips for your local business that would enhance your visibility and in turn help you generate more customers.

  • GEO targeted SEO – Geo targeting is a very effective SEO technique that can help you rank high on SERP’s. Geo targeting is basically targeting your local audience within the vicinity. Using this technique can help you promote your business or products to the local market. By registering with Popular Geo targeting services such as Google Places, Yahoo Local and Bing, you can direct prospective customers to your brick and mortar establishment.
  • Location based SEO – As a local business your objective should be to target customers in a specific location rather than a wider radius. This would enable you to create a monopoly for your business in the local market and increase your profitability.

Let us take a closer look at some popular location based tools which you can use for your local business:

  • Foursquare – Foursquare is a brilliant social networking app that can benefit your local business in many ways. It is in the form of a game where you can incentivize your potential customers to visit your brick and mortar establishment more often and post messages and comments about it to their friends. Incentives are given in the form of badges and points for each visit. Depending on the number of points your customers acquire, they can become the “mayor” of that area. This helps to spread the word about your business and is a great way to gain more customers.
  • Gowalla – Gowalla is yet another useful social networking platform that is instrumental in creating awareness and establishing customer loyalty for a business within a particular community. Very similar to Foursquare, Gowalla allows your customers to visit your business establishment and then talk about it with their friends. If your business has a Gowalla account you can interact with the people who have visited your establishment. The app also has a special “promote your business” button which you can use to promote your business through popular social media channels like Twitter, Facebook etc.
  • Online directories – One of the best ways for your local business to get found is by registering it with numerous online directories. This way when a potential customer searches for a product or a service offered by you, your link and details would show up among the top 10 search results. By registering yourself with popular local business directories such as Yellow Pages, Web Local and Bing Map your business would instantly show up on the top of search listings. This saves you a lot of quality time as a traditional SEO method would take months before you gain top page rankings.

There is no dearth of SEO strategies for local businesses today. Using effective mediums such as geo targeting and location specific SEO strategies can help your business successfully capitalize on the local market whilst cutting down on advertisement costs and saving your precious time.

Chris Burns writes for Search Engine Optimization X, an SEO Company specializing in white hat organic link building.

7 Responses to “How Can Local Businesses Leverage the Power of SEO?”

  1. Jessica says:
    July 14, 2011 at 7:52 pm

    SEO can be a huge money saver for local small businesses. You can get a huge amount of potential buyers from SEO instead of paying for expensive advertisement. Thanks for the article.

    Amy Reply:
    July 15th, 2011 at 5:36 am

    Although I don’t own a business, I helped a friend optimize her website, which offers a service (she is a softball coach). The great thing is people search for “cityname softball coaching” so I optimized her site for local search. She thinks I’m a genius but by going local, getting her to the top of page 1 was a piece of cake!

  2. Abayas says:
    July 15, 2011 at 6:57 am

    Well before that i was not aware that Foursquare and Gowalla are very helpful for businesses. Thanks for the info.

  3. Richard says:
    July 19, 2011 at 12:15 pm

    We have just set our business up with Foursquare so very interested to see how it goes.

  4. Henry Louis says:
    July 29, 2011 at 10:12 am

    I need to setup my business in FourSquare & Gowalla – would keep you posted about the advancements.

  5. Jon says:
    August 25, 2011 at 5:32 pm

    There are a lot of niche local directories out there. Also think small – look for local businesses, clubs, groups etc. that may be happy to link to another local business.

  6. eagle hills real estate says:
    November 13, 2011 at 2:59 pm

    Online directories are some of the best ways to market yourself. This is because many people each day go to these directories trying to find out things. If your business can be found then it might just increase your number of customers. The other ways you have mentioned are also very effective.