Local SEO Marketing

Local Search Marketing, or SEO, is a process to get a site or specific pages of a site to the top of search engine results for targeted words or phrases in a particular geograpic region.

This may involve focusing on a few essential keywords and phrases or it may involve an entire strategy consisting of complex on-page and off-page factors.

There are no hard and fast rules to guarantee top local search marketing placement. The search engines are constantly changing their algorithms and methods of ranking and scoring sites and pages.

Local Search Engine Optimization is a long-term process. It has never been nor never will be a case of 'once ranked always ranked'.

So How Does Local SEO Work?

There is no one right way to rank high in the search engines.

If you asked five people how to cook a meatloaf or a family stew, you'd get five different approaches. All with the same goal in mind. If you asked ten carpenters how to build the perfect house you'd get varied responses on what materials to use, how to lay a foundation based on the particular terrain, how to design the house and each room for long-term stability and beauty, and so on.

Just as there are literally hundreds of ways to design a house, there are hundreds of ways to approach Search Engine Optimization. The approach that works best for you varies according to your circumstances and overall marketing objectives.

Still though, like building a literal structure there are common 'materials' and 'tools' that are essential for building your local SEO marketing strategy.

Successful Local SEO Marketing Principles

When it comes to local SEO marketing best practices, content is king -- usually. On-page factors are critical in two areas of local SEO marketing.

The first is for gaining 3rd-party endorsement.

When you present quality content 3rd party sites are more apt to link to you ad endorse you to their visitors.

Another area content is effective is marketing in less competitive 'waters'. Getting to the top of search engines using nothing but the words on your page is easy when competition is low.

The easiest area of SEO marketing now are local or regional 'organic' listings. Few businesses target local SEO. Gaining high SEO ranking in local listings requires a few basic SEO approaches.

On-page factors contribute to high positioning simply because fewer aggressive search marketing competitors exist at the local and regional level.

SEO Isn't The End-All, Be-All Of Online Marketing

Despite the emphasis and hype people place on SEO, SEO should be just one part of a competitive local SEO marketing strategy.

An even greater source of traffic are social media networks.

As much as 76% of all real traffic is generated by social media sites. That's more than from Google and Yahoo - combined!

Local SEO marketing and social media marketing support one another. The search engines value the recommendations made by the internet community as a whole (ie the social media sites), and the online communities thrive on results found in the search engines.

By ethically focusing on both areas of local SEO marketing, a local company can get their site or specific pages of their site to the top of local search engine results fairly quickly and with much less effort than trying to compete against the whole world.