Local SEO

The thing about local SEO is that you have to stop thinking about a national market, and start focusing on a local market. That said, the google local seo algorithm also depends heavily on a lot of the same factors that non local seo depends on (backlinks, pagerank, content on the site). However, the difference is, the local seo algorithm in google also depends on your location, the number of citations you have, how well built your google places page is setup, and other factors.

A citation is basically a mention of your business on any webpage, anywhere on the internet. Just like with backlinks, a citation can have trust, reputation, etc.. and in the local seo algorithm some citations are more valuable than others. At this point there is no clear way to tell if google is valuing a citation higher in their local SEO algorithm, so you have to just get as many as you can. Getting citations from the most popular vertical directories is a good place to start, however, but don't leave out lower quality sites like blogs, forums, etc.. Wikipedia can even provide a good citation if you can get your business into it.

Local SEO depends on the quantity and quality of your citations. Start getting your site mentioned out there! You don't even need a backlink necessarily, you can just list your business name, address, and phone number. However, for it to benefit your local seo you have to make it EXACTLY the same as it is on your google places page.

Lastly, add as much content to your google places page as possible and claim your places page. Anyone doing local seo is doing this to their places pages so you're going to need to really work hard at this. Fill out all the details, hours, payment details, coupons, detail your services, brands offered, special sales, parking information, and anything else you can enter. The more info you have, the more trust you'll have in google's eyes and the higher ranked your places page will be. Do it!