Local Search Engine Optimization: How and Why?

Local search engine optimization is becoming an important part of any organization’s web presence. People obviously tend to frequent the businesses and organizations nearest them, for the matter of convenience and familiarity. Someone looking for legal advice when running up against local ordinances probably wants an attorney familiar with those ordinances, after all.

However, SEO for a local presence involves a lot more than simply putting up a Google Places page and dropping a few local place names into the text on the site. There are a host of alternatives that can increase any organization’s local SEO quickly and efficiently.

For example, consider the mobile market. Smart phones (and, to an extent, “pad” computers) are becoming very widely available. There are a number of applications that can create a “clean” version of a site’s information or place page specifically for mobile applications. Having such a page will increase the likelihood of a site coming up in a search for local businesses when guests are using a mobile device’s web features.

Businesses should not neglect press releases, either. Perhaps a health care organization is sponsoring a major vaccination effort or a free healthcare day for families that sign up for a particular plan. Take advantage of the fact that a number of local sites offer free or inexpensive press release distribution to just about anyone, and get the word out about such an event. Search sites have a bias toward current, newsworthy elements, and a press release about a planned event is a good way to generate such “current events”-type buzz and gain a higher ranking in local searches.

Finally, and as ever one of the most important things, keep your keywords up to date. Go through the keywords relating to your site’s field once a week or so, making sure that the ones trending in your location are consistent with the ones you have up on the site. A slight rewrite now and again to keep keywords relevant is good SEO practice.