Bill Masson 
December 9, 2009, 6:44 am|
The World Wide Web is a huge market and finding common or popular trends to market makes sense, but what if you just want to get the attention of local searchers? The most obvious candidate for this type of website owner would be any local business and in some cases, individuals. When you think of traditional advertising you think about yellow pages, local papers and media from television and radio.
Nowadays search engines are particularly geo targeted to the needs of local searchers and this segment of the search traffic is proving more and more popular. In order to connect to your local target audience there are a few things you need to do in order to capitalise.
Geo Tags
This is one way to let the search spiders know where in the world you are, literally! By generating a simple html code for your header, you can fine tune your location to the exact location if need be, below is a sample geotag HTML code for Edinburgh Castle, UK. *Take note of the figures which are the longitude and latitude locations.
Copy the generated code into the HTML header of your web page, which is the area between <head>and </head>.
Use the Validator at Geo-Tag.de to verify the validity of your geo-tags.
<meta name=”geo.region” content=”GB-EDH” /> <meta name=”geo.placename” content=”Edinburgh” /> <meta name=”geo.position” content=”55.948595;-3.199773″ /> <meta content=”55.948595, -3.199773″ />
Google Maps
Increase your visibility by submitting your site along with the service or products you provide to Google Maps. Go to the Local Business centre and fill out some forms, it’s completely free, if you don’t have a Google account you will need to sign up for one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjeCmHwqVpU
You will need to verify your submission, and this can be done by Text Message or phone. Once the verification is complete your website will start appearing on local search queries, also submit your website to Yahoo Local and Bing Local.
Google Webmaster Tools
If you are familiar with Google webmaster tools then you can quickly and easily set your geographical location by going into settings, select your target website if you have more than one website and look for “Geographic target” Specify your location and save.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9r3PayqaZM
Yellow Pages/Local Web Directories
There are many people that search for local businesses through yellow pages; don’t forget local and national directories depending on your location are also used by local searchers. There are other benefits of using these resources like getting one way back links which will enhance your SEO, and of course return more relevant local traffic which will build your authority. One point to remember: it’s better to use your countries URL extension like .co.uk. Depending on your business you may well use .info or .biz extensions too.
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Great information, i really appreciate as a new website owner we need such information to generate traffic to our website.
Jignesh Patel´s last blog ..Guaranteed Website Traffic Is It Too Good to be True?
I would only do this if the company really relies on local business. This could backfire if you are actually targeting a national or international market. If you explicitly tell the search engines that you are targeting a certain region, they may assume you are less relevant for other regions.