Main search engines like Google have strict guidelines when it comes to local search.  Local customers are utilizing a variety of online internet websites and tools to obtain the services and items they need and want.  Search engines know about this practice and, therefore, they are still further refining its local search algorithm.  They are starting to think about generic key phrases—like “physicians”, “attorneys” and “pizza”.  These generic keywords are incorporated in the search query when browsers look for services or products.  In this regard, there is an increase in using generic key phrases with terms related to localities, which in turn, could be quite useful for small businesses.

Another important factor in local search optimization is through IP identification.  The big search engines know the based architecture for local search portal.  This determines the particular location of the searcher’s computer and this information provides results in a particular geographic location.  Search engines are now aware if a browser wants to find a local store by doing a local product search.  Small businesses now have a competitive edge with big companies—as long as business owners understand and utilize SEO.  If you own a small business—whether online or a mortar-and-brick store–here are five best optimization tips that can help you.

1.  Register your company or business with search engines, starting with the Big Three: Google, Yahoo and Bing.  Each of them has their own local company registry guidelines. Signing up and verifying your company or business—in Google Yellow Pages or Yahoo Restaurants for example—signifies the authenticity of your business for many browsers.

2.  To help you reach the top of a specific local search, it is important to develop backlinks from numerous local internet sites.  The reason for this is that the big search engines like Google assess the backlinks for your website. Developing a network of local sites including your keywords and anchor text placement transmits the best signals to the search engines, making certain they consider your site an essential component to local product search in your area.  Make sure that the following information is listed correctly and prominently:

* Business Title

* Home Address

* City, Province, Country

* Postal and Zip Codes

* Local Phone and Fax numbers

These particulars ought to be found and seen in the Contact, About, and Home pages.

3.  Squeeze Pages: Develop specific squeeze pages, also known as landing pages, for various places in case your company has many outlets or satellite offices and stores.  Make sure the squeeze pages contain the important information about your location and other contacts.  It is also advisable to put in a Google Map in your website.

4.  Information Consistency: Whenever you register your business or company in a particular local search site—like City Search, Yellow Pages, Yahoo Restaurants—be consistent in giving the specific information needed.  Remember that you are building your online network, so it’s important that browsers recognize your company and business and not be confused with details.

Local search is indeed an effective tool for small and big businesses alike.  It offers several benefits for companies focusing on local marketplaces.

©2012 Local Online Marketing Specialists. Internet Marketing, Website Marketing, SEO Services – eLocalise. All Rights Reserved.

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If you are looking for the best coffee shop in your area or confused with some of the street signs and you don’t know which one to take, you have a lifesaver in just a few taps of your mobile touchscreen phone—Google Maps.  Google Places, another synonymous word with Google Maps, is the best way these days to look for local business around your area or where you are at.  You can also have an excellent set of driving directions from Google Maps because it could easily track where you are and to where you want to go in just a few seconds.

If you have an online business, or you have a brick-and-mortar store that you want to be found online, then Google Maps is the best way to reach out to your target market.  One for, Google Places offers free listing for businesses, so it would be advisable for you to take advantage of this online business promotion.  Google Maps is proven to give companies—small and big—a huge boost in search engine visibility through its online business listing.  In turn, you don’t have to spend much on your local marketing campaigns because there are free and economical options on the internet.

A business listing, in tandem with local marketing strategies, are gaining a following because it works for everyone—from established companies to small businesses.  And, these are made possible just by adhering to proven Google Places optimisation.  SEO experts are now into Google Places SEO strategies, starting from researching local city oriented keywords such as “Melbourne dentist” or “Sydney cake shop”.  Potential clients and customers look for local information in Google Maps and they would find relevant data about your business product or services.  Some of the basic information to be found in a business listing are the store address, operation hours, phone numbers, and even some photos or videos about the offered products and services.  Google Places SEO will also take care of producing a detailed map of your store location, including simple directions on how to get there from different routes.

For those small business owners who are yet unfamiliar with Google places optimisation, here are the basic techniques to be done to maximize online visibility.  First, you need to complete your business information in the business listing.  Don’t leave out important details, such as fax numbers or email, as much as possible.  Next, remember that your company name is also an important keyword in itself.  Thirdly, when optimizing your website, remember to include the city keywords in titles and meta tags.  Another thing to keep in mind is to categorize your business product or service with search terms, such as cosmetic dentist, wedding cakes, and so on.  And, last but not the least, put some pizzazz to your business listing by adding some great photos, videos, and other local marketing come-ons such as discount coupons.

In the end, you would also need some help from your satisfied customers because their reviews and comments on your Google Maps business listing would come a long way.  The more good reviews the higher the ratings, and this also means a higher positioning in Google Places.

©2012 Local Online Marketing Specialists. Internet Marketing, Website Marketing, SEO Services – eLocalise. All Rights Reserved.

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You just made that big leap from an employer to an entrepreneur and the next big step you got to do is to figure out what online local search is.  Why?  Well, you quit your 9-to-5 job and you have set up your own business selling products (or services, either way) online.  Of course, you also have your own brand new website but then, you are struck with a problem: since what you have is just a small business and you could barely manage serving customers in your geographical area, you need to master the art of local search so you can deliver your goods or services to the right people.  Sounds easy? Not quite.

Put it this way, if you have a local “brick and mortar” store or shop (like a restaurant or sports shop), a service company (like a home massage and spa service or a PC repair service), or even an insurance company affiliate (that is, you are an agent of a particular insurance provider), a website could do wonders to promote your small business out there.  But you need one condition to successfully pull this off: your business website should show up at the top of local search listings for your specific product or service.  Big search engines, like Google and Bing, now uses sophisticated algorithms to determine where browsers and users are searching from and these mammoth engines organize and shows the searches relevant to the online surfers’ locations.

In a way, this is a good thing, particularly to beginning entrepreneurs like you.  Even if your business website is simple, your product or services could still come up on top of search lists—all because of the art of the local search.  Users could be lazy or just harried at times so they don’t dig deep into the search results to try to look for the information they are searching for.  If your business website pops at the top ten search results, browsers would click your link, instead of your competitor’s. How to do it?  There are some helpful tips to make local search work for you.

The first thing you do to make local search effective for your website is to claim your online listings.  Truth to tell, this is quite easy to do, particularly if you go to the popular sites such as Google Places, CitySearch.com, and the like.  There are buttons there such as “claim your listing” or “edit this place” which you could easily access.  All you have to do is follow their protocols about verifying your status as a business or company owner.  When editing or setting up your business listing, like in Google Places, it would be best if you enhance it by adding descriptions about your product or service, some photos and even videos, and other relevant information needed.  This would definitely help your browsers and would-be customers.

One more important tip to take advantage of local search for your business website is to get good reviews and feedback from your satisfied customers.  For example, do you know that one of the measures on how Google ranks your listings is through quantity and quality reviews?  So, make that charm work by contacting your best customers and soliciting a good review that could leave on your listing.  It’s about time to take control of your online presence and boost your business in the process!

©2012 Local Online Marketing Specialists. Internet Marketing, Website Marketing, SEO Services – eLocalise. All Rights Reserved.

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Yahoo BOSS and Bing—this could be a clash of the titans.  These major search engine giants have become part of daily life.  Majority of the people today, particularly in urban places, always seek the latest developments about the world around them and the search engine giants feed the need for information with remarkable results.  Bing and Yahoo have been two of the most in demand and used search sites in the United States and in a lot more countries.

However, a year ago, Yahoo Boss was released and started to take up speed in online usage.  Yahoo! BOSS simply means “Build your Own Search Service”.  It is started by Yahoo! Developer Network to offer an open search web services platform.  At the age of 24, Vik Singh was one of the innovative minds behind the creation of Yahoo BOSS.  He was recognized by Technology Review as one of its 2009 Innovators Under 35.  Research from Technology Review showed that Yahoo Boss seems to be following the footsteps of Bing, in terms of gaining usage popularity.

A month after its launch, data revealed that Yahoo BOSS answered an estimated 30 million inquiries in 24 hours, totaling to 900 million searches in a month.  These numbers catapulted Yahoo BOSS to fourth place in search engine rankings in the US alone.  It is just few percentage below the market share of Bing, its nearest rival.  Since the first quarter of 2009, the search queries doubled.  For instance, that 50 percent growth means 45 million queries in a day.  This sums to 1.35 billion queries in just one month.

Just before Yahoo BOSS was launched, there are a lot of people who see that BOSS on its own has a huge stability, even better than Microsoft searching cites. They may have a good point there, because now, BOSS belongs to Microsoft which can be in control of Yahoo search operations.  On the day of the agreement launch, Yusuf Mehdi, the SVP of Microsoft Company mentioned that he wanted to keep BOSS from running because “there is a lot of goodness there.”

However, the question remains if Yahoo BOSS can surpass Bing and becomes a lot bigger than its rival.  For now, the odds seem to favor Bing because it has an API (application program interface) which could easily serve an estimated three billion queries. In this case, Bing’s own unmetered APIs are responsible for many more searches than BOSS, and are also not counted in the comScore data. All of this emphasizes the larger point here, which is, opening up search to outside developers is a powerful way to gain search query share.  Bing may still be holding ground but Yahoo BOSS still has a lot to offer in the coming months.

©2012 Local Online Marketing Specialists. Internet Marketing, Website Marketing, SEO Services – eLocalise. All Rights Reserved.

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When a local company has a very limited budget and needed to cut cost on marketing strategies, one needs to look for an economical way of getting the business out there, where the target consumers are, and this is where local SEO services come in handy.  Sure, there’s traditional marketing like billboards, radio and television spots, magazine and newspaper advertisements, yellow pages postings, and so on.  But these marketing methods would mean shelling out hundreds and even thousands of dollars, which is very pricey for a small local business or company.  But if a small business takes advantage of internet marketing and takes on SEO (search engine optimisation) to enhance its website, it could have better results in the long term.

To give business owners an idea, here’s an example of what one traditional marketing strategy costs.  Putting up a relatively sized billboard in a busy traffic area could immediately cost between $3,000 and $50,000+ per month (depending on the size), and would require a contract for a minimum of six months. Now, that is quite a large sum of money for marketing, and it eats up the business profit.  Most small local businesses don’t have that much capital to shed on traditional marketing, so it’s a good business move to use local SEO services in enhancing its online presence.  Since most people are online nowadays using different tech gadgets—such as netbooks, smart phones, PC tablets—business websites should rank at the top of search results.  Local companies and business should strive to be in listing in Google Maps, for instance, in order to capture their target market.  So, these days, part of local SEO services is Google Local (places) optimisation.

Unlike PPC or Google Adwords management, Local SEO Service is a surefire investment for a local business as it could help it reach the highest rank at the top of search results.  For instance, Google Local (places) optimisation utilizes several highly-relevant, geographically targeted keywords.  It also helps if SEO methods for organic search are used.  Choosing an SEO company that offers local SEO services is far cheaper and more money-saving in the long run.  After all, like most local businesses, budget should be more focused on payroll, store lease, and other expenses, instead of going to marketing gimmicks.

Put it this way, if the business product or service for a specific location does not even reach the first page of a major search engine like Google, then the company is just waving goodbye to all its investments and capital.  Meanwhile, its competitors are already there, using the power of Local SEO services and their prime listing in Google Maps, ready to take customers and prospects away from a company that does not use Google Local (place) optimisation.

What’s great about using local SEO services is the cost.  Implementing an SEO (search engine optimisation) plan, coupled with a listing in Google Maps, could cost at about $250 dollars per month on an average.  For more competitive industries and locations, however, the price would increase accordingly. Indeed, local SEO services is a better option for business marketing. The prices are more affordable than the conventional ways, results are measureable, and most importantly, high ROI potential for a long period.

©2012 Local Online Marketing Specialists. Internet Marketing, Website Marketing, SEO Services – eLocalise. All Rights Reserved.

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If you have a business website which may be currently experiencing problems in terms of searchability and ranking in search engine results pages or SERPs, chances are it has been affected by Google’s Google panda update.  Presented to the public in February 2011, Google panda is among Google’s biggest changes in its algorithm, specifically tasked to discovering and easing out websites of supposedly low quality from the SERPs.

Through Google panda, Google aims to provide its users with search results having relevant, unique, as well as original content, thereby leaving their clients with a much improved search experience.  Low rankings in results pages await websites which duplicate, farm, scrape, use or have for bulk of their contents syndicated materials from other sources.  Google is practically showing how tired it is of spammy copycat webpages and websites.  Thus, website owners better get their acts together unless they want to be booted out of the searches of Google clients.  With Google panda now in use, websites using autoblogging software should now reconsider their bad search engine optimization tactics.  SERPs are now free of websites with unoriginal or irrelevant content in their top 10 to 20 results.  With Google Google panda in place, users now see more relevant content created by original authors.

With the advent of this new algorithm, are you worried about the future of your business website?  If you are like most business websites which offer better content than, let’s say, websites for hobbies and other interests, then you likely produce high-quality and original website content with high relevance to your niche.  With the coming of Google panda, you should have observed a great improvement in your rankings.  Meanwhile, if your website uses content, however small, provided by external web sources, Google panda may have possibly affected your business presence online.  For Google, legitimate-sourced content and scraped or stolen content are one and the same duplicates.  Moreover, you should be alert on any decrease in your rankings if you are among the numerous small business websites whose profits taken from advertising revenue rely on high rankings in SERPs.  Low rankings will likely lead to low revenue on your Adsense or traffic-related programs in your website.

What then should you do to avoid being negatively affected by Google panda?  You are advised to ensure that your web content should be original instead of being an aggregate of contents from other websites.  Your information or videos in your website should be presented with lots of information and strengthened by an authoritative voice or stance.  Your navigation structure should be clear and simple, leading to easier navigation for search engines as well as your target audience.  Your website content should be of great value as well as relevance to your targeted clients.  Lastly, the advertisements on your website should be reduced.  You can prevent any remaining advertisements from obstructing the main content by placing these at the end or by the side of the content, be these textual or visual.

With Google panda update posing possible negative effects on websites which feature duplicate content, even legitimate sites now have to consider coming up with their own content instead of using RSS feeds via content aggregators.

©2012 Local Online Marketing Specialists. Internet Marketing, Website Marketing, SEO Services – eLocalise. All Rights Reserved.

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If you want your business to thrive online, make local search marketing your business.  This means you should know everything and anything about local search marketing because you can bet your bottom dollar that this is going to be one of the “movers and shakers” of doing business online.  Local searchers have become quite valuable in the eyes of search engine mammoths, such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing.  A few years ago, it was observed that when people are looking for some service or product on the net, they also tend to narrow their search within their known area.  They did this by attaching the name of their particular place or city.  Nowadays, search engines are heeding the call of millions of internet users to optimize their searches according to their places or locales.

Local search marketing, then, is quite helpful to paying clients and customers because they can easily buy or get the service or product they need within their residential or office areas.  Local businesses and companies can use the Internet to market their services to their local target markets and need not worry if online browsers from Timbuktu would also get the same information and content.  Another plus for local search marketing is it is already being used through mobile phone browsing.  In a way, the benefit of local search marketing opens the door to another type of online customer and that is the mobile user.

So, the question now for you is does your company or home-based business need to reach out to a targeted local online market?  If this is the case, then you really need to use the strategies and other methods of local search marketing in order to capture your target consumers.  You have to see this activity as a long term one because you are building a relationship with your customers online.

With this in mind, the first step in local search marketing campaigns is to connect with your customers and clients.  Strengthen your social media network and make your company’s online presence be known in popular sites such as Facebook and Twitter.  Try to get your loyal customers and clients, and even your friends and family, to write positive comments and reviews about your product or service.  Post these so their friends and family can also look it up and they would be inclined to show some interest to the product or service being recommended or talked about.  Remember, local search marketing is about building relationships with your loyal clients AND would-be customers.

Another important thing to do is to come up with good keywords.  This would be very helpful in optimizing your web content for the search engines to grab.  At first, since you know your business well, try to think of keywords on your own at first.  Then, make the list longer by using keyword tools that are readily available online.  You can use the Google Keyword Tool which is user friendly, even for non-experts.  But, a word of caution, though: you are looking for quality keywords, not just quantity.  So, what are you waiting for?  Better get started on your local search marketing plan and work on it now.  More and more businesses are seeing the many benefits of local searches so it’s time for you to get ahead of your competitors and get started.

©2012 Local Online Marketing Specialists. Internet Marketing, Website Marketing, SEO Services – eLocalise. All Rights Reserved.

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The business industry is now recognizing the importance of local online marketing in reaching out to customers and increasing the profit margin.  Nowadays, it is important to develop a business or company website to expand customer base and get ahead of competitors who are also eyeing the same target market.  Companies and business ventures that started out as small brick-and-mortar stores should seriously consider making their presence felt online because almost everything can be found on the World Wide Web, from products to services to even advocacies and political campaigns.  However, it must be stressed that businesses that want to jump in the local online marketing bandwagon should be careful enough to have a good plan to guarantee a successful virtual marketing campaign.  Here are some strategies that could help the self-made entrepreneur or small company take their marketing strategies to the virtual level.

First of all, local online marketing strategies and campaigns might go to waste if the company or home-based business does not have a good website design.  This is the most basic element in producing and successfully pulling off a good local online marketing strategy.  If the business website looks professional, prospective customers would see that as a good sign that the company is serious with its business.  If the customers find the web content useful and interesting, they would keep on coming back to the website and, eventually, this may lead to generating and increasing sales for the business.

Another important element to focus on when making a local online marketing campaign is the use of search engine optimization (SEO) techniques.  Even if the company has a great website, with lots of informational content and so on, but it does not attract traffic to the site, then a lot of effort and time are wasted.  Having a good website is just part of the plan, but it needs some help from SEO experts to spice things a bit and generate huge traffic to it.  Competition is always fierce so a website that uses good SEO techniques will definitely land on the top pages of search engine results.  When this happens, more browsers would see the business website and they would also be more likely to go to that page.

Speaking of browsers, the target audience should be assessed first when planning the steps of a local online marketing campaign.  This is where the popular social media sites will come in.  Businesses and companies, whether big or small, must never underestimate the power of “word-of-mouth” referrals and recommendations, even in this day and age of technology.  People who are satisfied with certain products and services would natural share their experience with it, either good or bad ones.  Local online marketing is about going to the grassroots, the target market and to connect with them.

The next important thing to look into when developing a local online marketing strategy is the company website submission.  This means that the company website should be listed in Google Maps since this is the biggest search engine in the world today.  Company and business webmasters should ensure that their website is available in the local search and in other popular sites such as online local business directories, the modern yellow pages.

Finally, it is better to come up with more local online marketing strategies than just sticking to one method.  The more strategies there are, the more chances it would get increased traffic and sales.

©2012 Local Online Marketing Specialists. Internet Marketing, Website Marketing, SEO Services – eLocalise. All Rights Reserved.

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As important as the product, services or whatever the company is offering, it is crucial that the enterprise must have an established internet base through the use of Google Places and SEO (search engine optimisation).  Gone are the days of brochures, pamphlets and other marketing paraphernalia. Thus, for a business enterprise to be credible in the new market, one has to find its way into the internet world and land in the Google Places Directory.  Websites have become a necessity. But setting up a website is just but a start of this venture.  Business owners like you should know more about Google Places and SEO so you can make full use of your website.  With the steep competition at hand, one has to find its way to the top of the so many lists that the internet search engine would provide.

Fortunately today, there are a lot of tools that a business can use in order to attract more clients.  Here is where Google’s free services come in—such as Google Places—and by maximizing these free services, one would not have to spend too much to enlarge the capacity to be seen more on the web. It would just take more diligence on the part of the business owner, as well as basic knowledge of how Google Places and SEO work together.

One of these free marketing tools that businesses can take advantage of today is to be listed in the Google Places Directory. It would not take much of your time and effort to do this. All you need to do is to enter your business information in the directory. But just like what have been said, having advertised your business online is just the start. This is where Google Places and SEO geotargeting play an important role.  Geotargeting is simply the method used by the search engine to find out the exact geographical location, like country, region, state, or city, of the viewer or probable consumer and calibrating the results of the desired query entered with regards to his or her position geographically.

If you have optimized your location and if your location matches the one that the client is looking for, your business would have a greater probability to be seen by the client. Thus, geotargeting optimization for your business would have to potential to propel your business into a new level if done correctly. By using Google Places and SEO methods and strategies that would enable you to have greater web visibility, your business would have a bigger potential to be seen and picked by the prospective client.

Aside from that, being in the Google Places Directory literally puts your business in the internet map which allows potential clients to have the necessary information about the services and products you offer. Once you have your business listed in Google Places Directory, your information will then be verified.  Almost everyone uses Google maps and being on the map physically communicates a degree of credibility for your business. Not to mention that if the interested client decides to finally acquire your services, Google Maps would provide routes that can help them reach you better.  Using Google Places and SEO techniques indeed poses a lot of advantages on your part as a business owner.

©2012 Local Online Marketing Specialists. Internet Marketing, Website Marketing, SEO Services – eLocalise. All Rights Reserved.

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The internet has been, so far, one of the greatest and most powerful tools invented as of today—and Google Places optimisation is the best way to maximize it for businesses. If you’re a small business owner, you want your website to be searched, clicked, and browsed, because that’s definitely good for business.  Almost as synonymous to the word “search,” Google has dominated the search engine industry. Google has provided people from all walks of life the accessibility to almost any information.

One of the greatest features that Google is offering is its Google Places listing. With GPS devices available to almost everyone and people turning to Google maps for directions and other information, it is of great advantage for a business enterprise to follow the techniques of Google Places optimisation.  What even made this feature attractive is that it is easy to access and you don’t have to pay anything for your enterprise to be placed in the listing! Having this in consideration, most competitive businesses are availing of this feature.

If you have already entered your business in the Google Places directory, maybe you just need some recalibration to help you maximise this feature. If you have not yet entered your business in the Google Places directory, it’s time to do it now! Though an official website would be beneficial to the credibility of your business, contrary to the popular notion, you don’t need one in order to start the process and register to be a part of the Google Places Directory. The longer that you prolong this process of registering, the more opportunity to connect to consumers is being wasted. The longer your business has been registered in the listing, the more credible it becomes.  This is the reason why you should start with Google Places optimisation as soon as possible.

But enlisting your business is just the first step. After registering, Google Places would then require you to choose up to a maximum of five categories that best describes your business or the services that you intend to offer. By carefully selecting the right words without going overboard or being too complicated, this feature would prove to be beneficial. It is important that you take for consideration during the Google Places optimisation of your website the most likely words or phrases that a normal consumer would use in order for your business to match it.  In line with this, it very important that you select a keyword that would best express the nature of your business.

After having done this, validate your business.  This is an important part of Google Places optimisation.  You can choose to email, call, or simply send a short message through your mobile phone to verify the existence of your business. On this note, it is advantageous to have an accessible local number. In doing so, potential consumers are assured that you are indeed based on the area that you stated and with that, it creates an atmosphere of a more speedy and reliable service.

Another factor to be considered is credibility—and this is where customer feedback plays a vital role. Even long before the internet world, consumers would want to verify the credibility of the business. A feedback can be easily posted by previous consumers alongside your Google Places listing. Again, this is an integral part in the Google Places optimisation of your website.

©2012 Local Online Marketing Specialists. Internet Marketing, Website Marketing, SEO Services – eLocalise. All Rights Reserved.

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