Free Local Search Engine Submission Information
Do It Yourself or Hire Our Submission Service

Good rankings for local search are critical to almost every business with a website where the business serves a local or regional market, and with the recent varying changes in how Google chooses to display local search results, even if you have a first page organic ranking for a non-local search phrase, you might end up at the bottom of page one in the search results.

Your first priority should be on earning Google rankings and for good reason. Google accounted for 71.43 percent of all U.S. searches conducted in the four weeks ending August 1, 2010. Yahoo! Search, Bing and Ask received 14.43 percent, 9.86 percent and 2.32 percent, respectively. The remaining 70 search engines in the Hitwise Search Engine Analysis Tool accounted for 1.94 percent of U.S. searches. If you want traffic, you have to make Google work for you.

Don't have time to do all this?  Contact us for more information about our very affordable local search engine submission service and we will send you a link to the information and questionnaire.

The Top 10 To Dos for Google Places

1. Claim Your Google Places Page Local Listing

If your website has been online for a while and if you have your address on your website pages, chances are you may already have a listing. If not, create one.  Or, hire our submission service.

2.  Have a Business Address in Your Target City

If you are located in a prominent building, business park, shopping mall searchers may be looking for your address.

3.  Complete Your Google Places Page with the Proper Business Categories

List everything you do that is important to the success of your business. If you can use any of the standard categories Google shows, this will help.

4.  Put Your Product or Service Keywords in Your Places Page Business Title

Don't know which phrases would be the best to use?  Read about keyword services or hire our submission service.

5.  Closer to Your City's Center Is Better

Chances are your Google Maps position in local search will be better the closer you are to the center of the city.

6.  Put Your Products and Services Keywords in your Google Places Page Description

7.   Use Photos with your Google Place Page

This may also help you show up in image search.

8.  Use Your Local Area Code Phone and FAX Numbers for Google Places

Get your local area code phone and FAX numbers on all your pages, see the redundant note below.

9.  Select Related Categories for Your Google Places Page

Close enough works for both horse shoes and Google.

10.  Use Your Location Keywords in Places Page Business Title

Also in your appropriate website page titles, see the redundant note below.

Address and Contact Information on Every Page

One of the most basic steps in earning good local search rankings is to put your company name, street address, city, state and ZIP code on every informational page in the website. Or, for websites outside the USA, your province or prefecture and postal code. This is typically done in the footer or at the bottom of a right or left column that is present on every page, like a navigation column.

Search engine spiders and robots cannot read text in graphics. So if you have this information in graphic form, you can either rework or delete the graphic (if appropriate) or make the information redundant in live text.

Having your company name and address on every page is also good website usability and is also good for your website credibility.

List the Local Communities You Serve on Every Page

Listing the largest city names, or county names, or state names for regional marketers to your web pages is another way to target local search. This can be done in the footer of every page or in a column common to every page.

My recommendation is to be moderate in what you include and focus on the most important locations. Do it but don't overdo it.

This can also be done in appropriate page titles and meta descriptions if the same geographic information is in the body copy of the page.

Use Geographic Targeting Information in Your Titles & Meta Descriptions

Use your location information in your page titles and meta descriptions. If search phrase research shows searchers are using phrases like Dallas Plastic Surgeon, then you might want to lead your page title this way. If not, use the geographic info at the end of the title.

Don't be spammy.

List Your Local Information with Search Engines

Get your locations registered with Google Maps. I recommend you do this even if you already show up in Google Maps. If you don't have one, you will need to open a free Google account.

List your business with Yahoo Local, Bing Local and any other search engines that bring you traffic.

Get Some Reviews Online

All three major search engines include reviews in their local listings. More reviews help earn a higher ranking.  Go to your listing on each search engine and find the 'write a review' link.

Then send that link to all of your clients, and ask them politely to leave a brief review.

This is not a bad thing. If your business is like mine, it runs on referrals. Reviews are referrals that everyone can read. I was pleasantly surprised at how many of my clients happily went and gave us glowing reviews.  If you have the time and energy, you can offer to do the same thing for them.

List Your Website with Local Search Directories

There are numerous local listing and review websites where you can list your local information for free and more where you can list for a fee.

Get More Links to Your Website from Other Websites

Ask about our link building program.

Read about better search engine rankings and why you need links in to your website.

When you get all of your content work done and it is as excellent as you can make it, then it is time for links. It can be amazing what a $600 investment in link building can do, especially if your competitors are not.

Start A Blog

I use a free Google Blogger blog on a number of websites I manage or own.  Look at http://blog.roncastle.com 

Blogger is free and based on research reported by others, Blogger ranks better than other kinds of blogs with Google. Wonder why, since Google owns Blogger? In order to open a Blogger account you have to have a free Google account. The username and password for Blogger will be your Google username and password.

Create More Locally Oriented Content

Part of the process of improving your content is to use geographic targeting in page <title> and meta descriptions.  You may also want to create some new pages for the most important geographic locations in your market area.

Check the WhoIs Information for Your Domain Name

If your domain is not registered to your company name and address you can change this with your registrar. This will help with some search engines for local search targeting. Make sure your current business address is your WhoIs address.

Create A Mobile Website Targeting Your Local Market

More and more searchers are using their Droid X or iPhone or other mobile device to locate products and services where they are.  Read more about mobile SEO services.  If you visit www.roncastle.com via your mobile device you will be automatically directed to the mobile page.

Don't Have Time to Do All of This?

Contact us for more information about our very affordable local search engine submission service and we will send you a link to the information and questionnaire.