Even if your business ships its products anywhere, you need to dedicate some of your SEO efforts to the local area. Whether you are in the metropolitan area or actually in Phoenix, SEO for local results is a must. But where do you begin? This introduction to local SEO will allow you to get your Phoenix area noticed right where you are.
Understand that even small towns need big pictures
First and foremost, you need to understand that you cannot ignore local SEO.
Unlike general SEO, local SEO isn’t about building more traffic for your website. It is about fortifying your business as an industry leader in your community. Even if you are the only business of your type in the city—or if you are located in a small town in the metropolitan area—do not assume that you don’t need to do any local Phoenix SEO work.
Other companies, including those that are not located near you or even in your industry will gladly take advantage of this by making it seem as though there is no option available other than them. Essentially, your business will be snuffed out of your own area on the web if you do not practice local Phoenix SEO.
Now let’s take a look at how to get a local Phoenix SEO campaign going:
Learn how to build a local targeting website
When starting your local SEO campaign, you should start with your actual website. Make sure you’re your Phoenix web design company adds information relevant to the local area to your website. Mentions of both Phoenix and the town that you are located in will enhance your results when searchers are specifically looking for something in your area.
Get cited
One of the best ways to boost your local Phoenix SEO is to get other websites to mention your company. This mention, which is known as a citation, is not as complex or difficult as a linkback—which you have probably heard about via your general SEO efforts. All you need is for people to enter information about your company; it doesn’t even have to mention your website. A citation could, for example, include the following:
- Your company’s name
- Your company’s name and address
- Your company’s name, address and phone number
- Your company’s address and phone number
- Your company’s name and web address
The list of possibilities for what counts as a citation is very long. The key is to get your company mentioned. You don’t, however, have to wait on someone else to mention you. Here are two great white hat ways to proactively build your company’s citations.
Be social
Social networking is known as a great way to build internet presence enhancing linkbacks. Citations can also be gained via social networks, as any mentions of your company count. Don’t be afraid to mention your company name and address on your next post or encourage your followers to do the same.
Get active on forums
Answering questions on forums is not only a great way to present your company as an industry leader, but you also gain an opportunity to add another citation. All you have to do is add your company’s to your signature.
Get reviewed
Google loves reviews, especially for their local results. Therefore, you need to get your company reviewed on all of the major review sites. In addition, you should be getting reviewed as often as possible, because Google rewards companies for not only overall rating, but also review activity, with the latter receiving more weight when ranking websites.
Commit to learning the ins and outs of Google
Before you get a headache from thinking about having to learn all of the mathematic complexities related to Google’s search engine, relax. We don’t expect you to learn everything about what makes Google tick—your Phoenix SEO company doesn’t know everything, and sometimes it seems as though Google itself isn’t omniscient about its own inner workings.
However, you should take the time to keep up with Google’s basic SEO guidelines—especially what to NOT do—and recent updates about how they intend to approach the creation of their search results lists.
Step outside of Google (but not too far)
Contrary to popular belief, Google is not the only search engine that people use. Bing and Yahoo both receive traffic in the billions each month; if you ignore these search engines, then you are passing up on sales lead generating traffic. Your local Phoenix SEO campaign must include consideration for these sites. But don’t overdo it; Google still gets more than twice as much traffic as Bing and Yahoo combined.