This local business marketing strategy will make it easier for customers to find your business online. Have you ever searched for your business on Google and come up with squat – even if you searched by exact name? No, you’re not living in the Twilight Zone. But you’re definitely not putting the effort into SEO that you need to be.
Yes, that’s right – SEO. Three tiny letters that strike fear into the hearts of many offline businesses. It stands for ‘search engine optimization’ and it means investing a tiny bit of time and effort into getting the search engines’ attention.
For folks who don’t know SEO, it seems like a form of black magic. SEO specialists are like wizards who know how to appease the Google gods. Actually, SEO is not nearly as hard as its cracked up to be and there are a few ridiculously simple things you can do to get your site found in search results.
Hey Google – I’m Over Here!
If you create a website, the search engines will notice it eventually. But if you want them to find you right away, you need to be proactive and submit your site to them. Submitting your website means basically telling them, ‘Hey, I’ve got a site here. Come and index it!’
Indexing means that the search engine scans your website and decides what it’s about. Then, it can direct searches to it. Most people don’t realize that you can do this. Submitting your site to the search engines will tell them that it’s there, but it’s even more important to…
Build Some Backlinks as a Local Business Marketing Strategy
What really gets your site noticed is all of the links coming into it. These are called ‘backlinks.’ Some SEO people tell you that the more backlinks you have, the better. Not true! It’s really the quality of your backlinks that matters.
The search engines rank every website. Sites that search engines consider high quality are called ‘authority’ sites. When you build backlinks, you should focus on getting links from these sites. Low quality websites that have little content and few visitors aren’t worth backlinking from.
A backlink is created anytime you put something out there with a link back to your site. For example, your profile at a forum or social media site like Facebook gives you a backlink. Articles that you submit to directories give you a backlink. If you write guest blog posts and submit them to high-traffic, high-ranking blogs, you’ll get some very nice backlinks. Your SEO strategy should focus on getting these. Jump on every chance you get to put your site’s URL out there.
Submitting your site to search engines and building backlinks are just two basic methods you can use to get your site onto the search engine results pages. There will always be someone to tell you to outsource all of your SEO; don’t listen! If you can put the time and effort into this local business marketing strategy, you can handle it all by yourself.
David Carleton is a San Diego Local Business Marketing Consultant who specializes in showing small business owners how to spend less and get more from their marketing and advertising using low cost strategies in local business marketing, lead generation and conversion, Internet marketing and social media. To download a copy of the free report, “7 Steps to Website Success”, go to http://LocalBusinessMarketingSuccess.com
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Topic: Local Business Marketing Strategy
