One of the Easiest Ways to Achieve Local SEO
I’m always amazed at how many companies I come across that do not take advantage of internet yellow pages (IYPs). IYPs have to be one of the easiest, most effective and (most important) free ways to achieve local SEO.
As I’m sure you have noticed, Google has incorporated their maps into the search results when people are searching within a specific locale for something. Google also will rely on other IYPs to help them define the relevancy of a company to a search topic by cross-referencing sites like Superpages, Yelp! and CitySearch. If you own or manage a restaurant, bar or coffeeshop and your business is not listed on the major IYPs, you have been missing out on driving traffic- both to your website and your doorstep.
My company is a perfect example. I am in the process of converting my website – RainierDigital.com – from what was primarily a blog to a more functional website that will outline my business and the internet marketing services I provide. With that said, my site has not been optimized one bit for ranking high in search engine results. But…you can still find me on the first page of Google search results for things like “search engine optimization denver,” “denver search marketing” and “denver marketing consultant” all because I took the time to register my company with Google Local.
I would highly recommend taking about an hour or so to make sure your business is listed on the major IYPs. Keep in mind that it is important that you maintain consistency across all of these directories. The primary IYPs that I would recommend are:
- Superpages
- Citysearch
- Yelp!
- Yahoo Local
- InsiderPages
- YellowPages.com
- BizJournals
- AreaConnect
- MagicYellow
- Switchboard
- Google Local
While you’re at it, ask customers to provide references or comments on these sites about your service and/or product. The more 5-star ratings you can compile the more confidence future customers will have in your ability to provide what they are looking for.
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These are great tips! I’m wondering if you have any similar suggestions for internet companies / startups where publishing of the company phone number is not the norm. Thanks!
Tracy- That’s a great question and the first bit of advice I can think of would be to purchase a local number on a service like Skype for $3/month and have all of the calls routed to a voicemail message that says something along the lines of “because we’re a startup and we have limited resources we would obviously like to take all of the calls that come in but we’d rather put our time and resources into making our products/services better for you. Please email any questions you have to info@xyzcompany.com and we will get back to you within 24 hours. Messages left at this number will not be returned, etc, etc” Now you have another touchpoint and you can establish more of a local presence with search engines and IYPs. It would be a good idea to then add this number to the footer of your website along with the address as Google and other search engines rely on this to confirm your location for local search results.