How to get your website listed locally
Author: Pilar Torres Wahlberg
Last Updated: 3/2/2010 9:19:40 AM
Summary
In addition to all major search engines, you should also try to get listed in local search engines and directories. This could really help you in getting a better position in the search engines.
Article
Many potential customers will try to phone you or visit you
before making a purchase. If you want to sell to the world, you may
be tempted to skip this step.
Here is why you should not do that:
You'll get good local rankings faster than good general
rankings. That is, you'll be at the top of the search engine
results page faster for "Surrey guitar repair" than you will for
"guitar repair." Since many people search that way, you might as
well take advantage of it.
Every listing you have is a link, and links are good for
business. We'll talk more about that in the future. For now, just
know that links in reputable local directories are a good thing for
your web site.
Your presence in local listings will make search engines more
likely to display you to people in your area. With
geotargeting, people in Surrey who type in "guitar repair" will be
given Surrey guitar repair services like yours first - but only if
the search engines understand that you are in Surrey. Listings in
local directories help search engines grasp that.
Important local listings will offer free. You must have a local
address to be included.
• UK Local Search
• Google local business will get you on the map at the top
of the page. You might have to confirm your listing via phone or
post.
• Yahoo Local requires a brick and mortar location, and
won't list businesses that sell only online, even if you have a
local address. - For ask city you can email
askcitybusiness@help.ask.com with your information.
• Localeze
• Thomson Local
• Scoot
• Touch Local
• city-visitor
• Yell direct, today's Yellow Pages As with all listings,
the key to success with these is to follow directions very
precisely. Often, the directions seem needlessly complex and
finicky. This is intentional; the directories want to make the
instructions so complicated that only human beings can follow them.
The links we've given you, though, are the most direct, so they'll
speed the process up quite a bit.
You can also find local directories in your own city.
Niche Directories There are thousands of little directories.
Some are link farms - pages set up to facilitate link exchanges.
But many are the honest efforts of people in specific niches to
provide useful information to others in their field.
Chances are that you use UKMusic if you are a musician.com, UK
Music Directory, Musician UK, or EntsWeb - or even more narrow and
specific listings.
It is, for you, easier and more comfortable and faster to go to
your specific directory than to use Google. So, if you repair
guitars, it makes sense for you to list your services in
directories that cater specifically to guitarists. In your own
field, you may already know of some good websites for the purpose.
However, you can find more by searching with a string like
this:
- Guitar repair "add URL"
- UK guitar repair "suggest site"
- Guitar repairs "add listing"
One tool that will speed this up is the Link Search Tool. Type
in your keywords (remember your keywords?) and this tool will run
searches like this for you. You will have hundred of possible sites
where you might choose to list your website.
Check that we said, you might choose to? This shouldn't be
automatic. Poor quality links will not benefit you the same way a
high quality link would.
Is it a valuable site? If the content of a site is no good you
don´t need to be listed there.
Is it relevant to your customers? Even if there are guitar
repair links at DatingLinkXchange.co.uk, it may still not really be
a good place to list your guitar repair services.
Your next steps:
You need to make sure that your local address appears on your
website.
Try to list your site with local directories and search
engines.
Identify the best directories in your market niche and list your
site with them.