How do I improve local search ranking?

brockg

I have been in business for a number of years, and I have finally realized that I need to have an online presence. I have found that there is a variety of pros, and there are a number of cons, as well. A positive aspect of an online presence is that the cost for generating leads and sales is significantly less. The negative side, at least for me, is the fact that it takes a significant learning curve in order to gain an understanding of what I am doing and need to do.


I started a few months ago and had gained a ton of information and knowledge in that time. I have come to realize that there are two types of search that I need to be focused on. I have a product based business selling religious items so I have the ability to ship almost anywhere someone could order from, but I also want to grow my business locally so more people can find and visit my shop.


So I found myself on Wikipedia at some point. I found a few pages about the whole idea of what local search results are. It wasn't exactly the most useful page for helping me to understand exactly how to rank in the search engines, however, whether it is for local results or particular keywords in the regular search engines.


I ultimately started looking for people and companies that could help me improve my rankings in the search engines, especially on a local scale. I came across a number of different types of services and programs that claim to be able to accomplish exactly this. I am a little hesitant about spending money on a program before I know it will generate positive results without causing problems for me in Google.


What other services have you used and what results have you seen with those services? I am much more focused on ranking on a local level right now. In time, I will grow my website and business to rank higher for particular terms on the regular search engines, but I want to drive more traffic to my store right now. What tips and advice do all of you have for helping me to accomplish this goal more quickly and easily? I am looking for some useful and practical advice to accomplish the goal of driving more local searches to my business and website.

WTFH

The easiest way is to get other local websites to link to yours (and vice-versa). Paying SEO businesses is a waste of money - in my opinion.

closed

by spamming forums

J_B

brockg wrote: »

I have been in business for a number of years, and I have finally realized that I need to have an online presence.

I was in business for a number of years, I soon realised that realise is not spelt with a Z!

jaydeeuk1

My IT company is pretty small, 5 soon to be 6 employees, approx £300k turnover last year but we appear in first page of google results on some key search terms, finishing higher than some multi million pound companies partly because our website is constantly updated with any news relevant to our area and linking to these stories. We don't bother with SEO stuff, I just have one guy who looks after the site which is one of those wordpress ones, mainly as I can't be arsed.

We're now 'big' enough in last few months to be able to ask some of our clients to put our name and link on their website for nowt (cheekily) which as WTFH says really helps, not bad seeing a tiny little company formed 2 years ago now sharing advertising space with HP and Microsoft on pages some companies would have to chuck good money at and knocking some well known companies down the pecking order in google.

But you're right about a website being key to business, we get approx 5000-10000 hits a day, a decent percentage of these become customers, something that cold calling or leaflet drops could never achieve, but a good chunk is also down to word of mouth

Mr_Toad

J_B wrote: »

I was in business for a number of years, I soon realised that realise is not spelt with a Z!

Using a z is perfectly acceptable, it was the preferred English spelling before the 'ise' came along and is why the Americans use ize rather than ise.

http://grammarist.com/spelling/realise-realize/

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/realize

Chickabiddybex

Get yourself on Google Places!