Top 10 Tips for Local Search Engine Optimisation

Punch Above your Weight Online – Localised search results have recently experienced a major overhaul within the Google SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) which has resulted in a fantastic opportunity for small and medium-sized businesses.

Local search results were previously relegated to a small map, which would appear within the first page of results, but now they enjoy first page domination for local search terms.

The benefit of this to small businesses is that they can now appear above their much larger revivals who are relegated to the last few results on page one of Google.

Don’t miss out on local search results; they’re your next customers. Here’s 10 tips to help you capture them:

1. Claim your Google Places listing – it’s easy to do and if one doesn’t exist for your business then you can quickly and simply create one. What is it? A Google Places listing is effectively a profile attached to Google’s local search results. It is important because Google ranks these profiles above all others in their new first page local search results.

The World Wide Web is similar to tests of strength knights of yesteryears went through. To taste success a website needs to be more than functional or great looking. It is a complicated business and webmasters are now kept on their toes trying to get higher rankings on search engines.

The secret lies in appealing to search engine spiders and so you need to know in detail how a spider works before you build a site.

• Spiders read text and cannot comprehend images, colours or graphics. So, any page that is design friendly with little or no content it will receive a low rank. Unless, you include in text format information contained in graphic images; submit only URLs of main content pages and not splash pages; include ALT descriptions of all pictures and include keywords that pertain to them.

• Know that the components that attract spiders are: TITLE tags, META tags, Header tags, keywords, and links. Many spiders score entire sites based on the overall scheme.

• Spiders read algorithms and do not take in whole pages. So, be news savvy and like newspapers place the most important information first. Titles, headers, and the introductory paragraphs must present the essentials.

• Keep updated on technical advancements in the way search engines examine materials. Read through guidelines of major search engines, as well as blogs and forum devoted to SEO and spiders.

Once your page is designed think about using a search engine stimulator to evaluate your pages. See: www.webconfs.com/search-engine-spider-simulator.php you can add the tool to your website. The report will clarify where you need to make any changes.

A search engine stimulator will also help you determine whether hyperlinks in your pages are “real.” Experts recommend using tags instead of java script based menus. Try and limit hyperlinks to less than 100 and check that they do not lead to 403 Forbidden or 404 Page Not Found pages. Spiders do not deal with such errors and your pages will not get indexed.

What any search engine spider does is that is crawls the web and indexes pages in any given database. The spider makes use of algorithms to determine page ranking and relevancy of indexed pages.

Be SEO savvy and select keywords that search engines will find. Tools like Keyword Playground and Website Key Word Suggestions will help greatly. Avoid dynamic pages and if you have them then run them through the spider stimulator to check if dynamic pages are accepted. Get your Meta Keywords and Meta Descriptions Right these are the delicacies a spider relishes. They are the cornerstones of page ranking and relevance in the “eyes” of any spider.

When planning a web site and its pages keep in mind at all times ” the spider.” This will help you develop pages that are search engine friendly.

Author Bio

Aaron Brooks is a freelance writer for www.1888seoservices.com, the premier website to find Seo consulting, link buildings and professionals seo training, online marketing tips, seo tools and more. He also freelances for the premier Web Directory site http://www.1866webdirectory.com

Article Source: http://www.ArticleGeek.com – Free Website Content

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Search engine optimization is an unavoidable buzzword for the web-based business. When your website is crucial to developing your business you need to be aware of SEO. Good, ethical SEO will help your business generate new leads, build site visits, and increase the visibility of what your company can offer. Bad SEO will do many of the same things — or, at least, will claim to do them.

As a non-technical person, how do you tell when an SEO company might be leading you down the wrong path? What key phrases should start your alarm bells ringing? How can you get solid information which will help you eliminate questionable companies?

You don’t need to know the ins and outs of search engine optimization to answer all your questions. There are some great resources for research that can help you out and some big key phrases that you can keep your eyes on!

Always be wary

Read the company’s information very carefully. Check their website and read their brochures. What does the site claim they’ll be able to do? If they’re claiming that their techniques will “guarantee you a top 10 position on major search engines” you need to take a second look.

ANY website can achieve a top 10 position for certain keyword phrases. Part of the problem is what they’re claiming to be able to do: put you in the top 10. Certainly, they can do this. But for what search phrase? If you achieve great positioning for a very uncommon search phrase your overall site optimization will not be helped.

How do they claim they’ll be able to help you? Do any of the following terms occur in their claims:

• Doorway page
• Satellite sites
• Search engine submission
• Mass email marketing

These terms are highly likely candidates for questionable activity. A doorway page is an access point to your site containing a high density of keywords which is not ever seen by human visitors. These are against the Google webmaster guidelines due to their misleading representation of site content. They will certainly get you banned from Google, and may be damaging in other indexes as well.

Satellite sites are sites owned and operated with optimization for your keywords which provide links to sites which share in those keywords. Although it is possible that these may be legitimate business concerns, it is highly likely that they are “link farms” — sites which exist for no purpose other than providing links to the optimization firm’s clients.

You may be wondering why search engine submission is on this list. Of course you want to be in the search engines! Yes — but there is no need to pay somebody to submit your site. Unless your site has been explicitly removed from a search engine’s index, for violation of their guidelines (such as SEO spam), it will be added to their index as soon as a single inbound link to it is found. You may submit your site to search engines, of course. This takes a couple of minutes, and simply informs them of your site. This may speed up the indexing of your site, it may not. There is certainly no reason to submit your site more than once.

Mass email marketing. In plainer words, spam. We’re all familiar with spam. Most of us have received daily offerings for genital enlargement or great mortgage deals at some point in our lives. Some companies will want to raise the profile of your site like this, and believe me — it’s not the kind of publicity you want. If you suspect a company of participating in spam marketing, this is actually fairly easy to check. Spamhaus.org is a non-profit organization dedicated to registering and making public information about known spam services. You can visit their site at http://www.spamhaus.org/ and search ROKSO (the Register of Known Spam Operations) to see whether the company you are investigating is listed.

Is this everything you need to know?

Sorry, no. Unethical SEO (or “Black hat” SEO) has many devious faces. It may not be obvious that a company engages in questionable practices. Your best protection is to become aware of what resources there are to identify unethical activities and companies. Some recommendations for your research:

• Black Hat SEO DirectoryProvides extensive information about companies engaging in questionable techniques. Directory, examples, information.
• SEOmozAn authoritative site for a consulting firm dedicated to search engine marketing and optimization. Particularly worth reading is an article called Black Hat vs. White Hat Search Spam Debate. This is an actual email conversation debating the merits and problems of each school of thought.
• The Official Google BlogAlthough this site does not restrict itself to SEO information, it is very authoritative when it
  comes to Google’s spam guidelines. Also read the official Google webmaster guidelines. They’re
  carefully written to make sense to both a technical person and a publisher.

Does unethical SEO work?

This is an important question — and I won’t beat around the bush. Yes, unethical SEO does work, in a matter of speaking. If what you want is to bring your site to the forefront immediately, but take a high risk that it will disappear from the search index after a short amount of time, then black hat SEO is highly effective. If you want to build your website into a high-quality, long-lasting business then black hat SEO will be devastating.

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