Google Local Search And The Impact On Natural Optimization

With the advent of Google Local, a service that helps Web users find local businesses by typing in a search term and a city name, many questions arise concerning its impact on Natural Optimization.

Google Local tracks down local stores and businesses by searching billions of pages across the Web, and then cross-checking these findings with Yellow Pages information to locate the local resources Web users wish to access. In addition to local business listings and related Web links, Google Local also provides maps of the desired region and directions made available by MapQuest. This makes Google Local convenient for Web searchers and extremely useful for local businesses, if their sites are optimized for local-searches. If not, some businesses could be missing out on a tremendous increase in local site visibility and traffic.

Case-in-point: The Home Depot, whose Web site features its own Store Finder with zip code-accessed location listings. Type “Home Depot” into Google Local and while a list of local stores appears, no related local landing pages come up. In fact, none of the related Web links even direct Web users to Home Depot’s home page. Most large sites that have retail stores have a search feature or “enter your zip” option. Google and other Search Engines will never be able to index this content. For retailers looking to increase sales and traffic from their Web sites, this could prove to be a big problem.

The Home Depot is not alone. Countless other large and small businesses alike do not have city-oriented pages accessible through local search sites. Many are not listed in the top 15 return results for related keywords for Google Local, despite their location in the immediate proximity to the search location. Google Local ranks listings based on their relevance to the search terms the user enters, not solely by geographic distance. This means that unless your site has a city and/or county-oriented landing page for each location, Google will not be able to access your contact page, no matter how relevant your site is to a search term, or how close you are in geographic distance.

Natural Optimization specialists never really focused on the optimization of contact and location pages on websites, but now it’s becoming a vital tool to drive more qualified traffic to the sites. In order to make sites local search-ready, they should start creating sitemaps that include every store location and then build individual landing pages for each specific location with a brief overview of the store along with a map and detailed directions. Without this, Google does not have a path to index the pages and information. Doing this small step will increase your qualified traffic as well as increase sales in your retail store or business.

By making your keywords city-specific and including more location-specific information on your site, Google Local can access your contact information and, as a result, drive more related traffic to your site.

Take Hard Rock Café. Their Web site is an ideal example of a site that is perfectly optimized for local Search Engines like Google Local. When entered in as a search term, Hard Rock Café’s number one listing links to their home page’s restaurant location page. Search users can instantly access information on Hard Rock Café in general, as well as learn more about location and contacts.

Local search is one of the most hyped areas of development in the Search industry today. Other Search engines including Yahoo!, Ask Jeeves, MSN and CitySearch are hot on Google’s tail to perfect their own versions of local Search Engines. Soon, not having your site optimized for local Search Engines will make your business’s site obsolete. The impact of local search is already apparent, and it is still only in its infancy.

About The Author

Rob Young, Manager of Natural Optimization and Creative Director of full-service interactive marketing and advertising agency UnREAL Marketing Solutions, has been with the company since its inception in 1999. Young oversees the Natural Optimization and Creative departments. www.unrealmarketing.com

rob@unrealmarketing.com

January 18th 2010 Posted to Search Marketing + More

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Choosing a good domain name isn’t always so simple.

So you need a domain name for your brand new internet business. You may even have some cool ideas for a new domain name combination that will really impress your friends. Question is, is your new domain name going to help your business or hurt it?

What could be simpler than choosing a domain name right? Wrong. There are a number of things you need to consider and research before you register your favorite domain name.

First off, what is a domain name and why would I want one?

A domain name makes our lives much easier when surfing the internet. You see, all computers on the internet are actually referenced with what is called IP addresses. On the internet, IP addresses are four sets of numbers that serve like street addresses allowing two computers to talk over a network. An example of an IP address is the one for Google.com. It is 216.239.39.99. If you enter this IP address into the address bar of your browser it will bring you to Google’s home page in that very same way that typing www.google.com would get you there. Unfortunately, we humans have difficulty remembering our phone numbers let alone so many digits for all kinds of sites. That’s one of the main reasons domain names were invented.

Domain names make it easy for us humans to remember how to find a site. Most people know Google.com and anyone familiar with the internet knows that to reach Google, you simply type www.google.com in your address bar and you are transported to their website. The same goes for Disney.com, Microsoft.com, CNN.com, etc…

Now you would think that choosing a domain name would simply be a matter of choosing something that is unique and that people would remember. The problem with that approach is that most of us don’t have the money needed to turn our name into a brand name on the mass market. Most of us need to rely on our prospects reaching our website through other means. The best of these are search engines.

Choosing a good domain name for your site starts with the main keywords you have chosen to focus on for your website. Before you launch your business, you should conduct some preliminary research online to determine which keywords have the most traffic and the least number of other websites competing for that particular keyword. Some tools that help in this are the Overture keyword suggestion tool and Wordtracker.com. Both of these tools will give you a rough idea of how much traffic each of your chosen keywords will likely get each month. This helps to determine which keywords to focus on.

Should you choose a domain name that includes your main keywords?

In most cases, the answer is yes. Google and to some degree Yahoo both give you a small boost for your domain name. If your domain name happens to contain your targeted keywords, your domain name will help you in your quest for higher search engine rankings. Now if you do everything else wrong, having your main keywords in your domain name will not magically catapult you to the top of the listings. Many other parts of your site must be working for you as well. Other things you can do to improve rankings are beyond the scope of this article.

Choosing a keyword rich domain is a smart business move.

For some sites, it could be the edge they need to move up a few spots in the search engines. When choosing a keyword rich domain name, you may want to consider hyphens between your keywords. An example is cheap-airline-tickets.com. Current research trends for Google and Yahoo suggest that hyphens are the only way to separate keywords within a URL that will give you a rankings boost.

Why not simply choose your company name? Simple. Is your company a household name? Are you so dominant in a category that people have stopped referring to the generic name of your category and use your brand name like Kleenex has for tissue paper? If so, register your company name. If not, register a keyword rich domain wherever possible.

You may be thinking, “But I already own a domain name that is my company name. Should I go and register a new domain and point it to the same site? The short answer is no. Years ago, you could improve your rankings on search engines simply by setting up lots of doorway pages and having them all link back to your home page with all kinds of domain names. That tactic nowadays can backfire. You are better off optimizing individual pages within your existing website than you are creating a whole bunch of “fluff” sites just to increase rankings.

The technique I suggest above is really best suited for brand new business ventures. If you still have not registered your domain name for that special online business you are about to start, then make it keyword rich wherever possible. If you have already launched your business, you’ll just have to take advantage of this information next time you start another online venture.

EzineArticles Expert Author Joe Duchesne

This article was written by Joe Duchesne, president of http://www.yowling.com/
, a budget web hosting company that specializes in helping online business owners increase their website traffic. Copyright 2004 Yowling. Reprint Freely.

November 02nd 2009 Posted to Search Marketing + More

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Feed me - Satisfy the Search Engines and Your Site’s Visitors With Keyword-Rich Content

Search engines love content. Graphics may make your site look great, but a nice picture does not attract a search engine. Or a searcher for that matter. Good, relevant content does.

Search engines aren’t all that different from people. When faced with a ton of choices, they want to know which sites are the best. And, the best sites are the ones that give the most accurate and relevant information.

Good content serves three main purposes:

1. Search engines will rank your site higher for keywords and phrases included within your content.

2. Users will return to your site, and recommend it to others

3. Other sites will link to you, which will improve your linking popularity and make your web site visible to the spiders.

But, how do you get good content? Simple. You write it, or get someone else to write it for you, using keywords and phrases your visitors will actually use on a search query.

Feeling a little hot under the collar? Relax. It’s not as difficult as it sounds. Anyone can learn to write for crawler search engines. It just takes a little planning, detective work and focus. Ready to begin? Follow the steps below and you’ll be writing like a pro in no time.

1. Determine which keywords and phrases you want to target

Before you sit down to write anything, you’ll need to decide which keywords and keyphrases are relevant to your site. One of the best ways to do this is to use the Word Tracker keyword tracking service at www.wordtracker.com. Word Tracker receives its data from the Dogpile and Metacrawler search engines and estimates search counts for all other search engines based on its market share. You can sign up for a day, a week, a month or a year.

Another good way to find keywords your visitors are using is to look at your site’s server logs. These will tell you what phrases people are using to find your site. Some keywords will be too competitive. For example, the keywords “real estate” will return hundreds, if not thousands of search results, and may not place your site near the top, but “Houston Real Estate” or is more focused and targeted to a particular query.

If you want your site to be included in local and regional searches you may want to design your site with local searches in mind, even if you also market globally. How do you do this? Just include local keywords such as address, city, state, province and zip code in the header or footer of your web pages. For example:

XYZ Business Consultant, 3657 Acacia Avenue, Santa Cruz, California 95067. Tel: 408 746 8954. Located close to San Jose, CA.

That way you have a much better chance of getting a first page listing on a localized search.

2. Scatter your chosen keywords and phrases throughout your text.

Let’s say one of the keyphrases you want to target is “cotton duvets”. You’ll want to weave this phrase throughout your copy without making it sound stilted or contrived. Remember, you still need to persuade your prospects to buy your product, so don’t be tempted to write paragraphs like this:

“Our cotton duvets are the softest cotton duvets around. Check out our affordable cotton duvets in our online cotton duvet store now.” While it’s obvious what your keyphrases are, the two sentences don’t exactly encourage your visitor to place an order. Be subtle. Use your keywords to emphasize your point and insert them where they naturally fit, without compromising flow and readability.

3. Review your headings, titles and hyperlinks

Use your keywords in headings, subtitles, page titles (found in the blue bar at the top of your Web browser), bold face and hyperlinks, because these stand out to the search engines. For example, returning to the cotton duvets you may want to change your “contact us” hyperlink to “contact us now about our luxurious cotton duvets.” Or, “learn more about how our cotton duvets can keep you warm and snug this winter”

4. Post keyphrase-rich, informative articles on your site

Another great way to fill your site up with keyword-laden content is to post relevant, informative articles. Every article you post on your site adds more content–content that the search engines thrive on. And, if you write each article as if you are giving the spider a good, healthy meal full of essential keywords, they’ll devour every word, and index it for future use.

You can also post your articles on article directories such as GoArticles, Article City or IdeaMarketers that offer free content to ezine publishers and website owners. That way you’ll spread the word about your site, get some great back links and even free publicity.

5. Publish a Newsletter or Ezine

Newsletters and ezines are another way to add content to your site. If you’ve written articles already, you get to reuse them, and you can create a newsletter archive section on your website.

6. Post a blog or weblog

Blogs or Weblogs are frequently updated journals. that point to articles elsewhere on the web, and to existing on-site articles. The popularity of blogs have spawned blog services such as Typepad and Blogger which make it easy for non-techies to update their sites and add them to an existing web site. Because both the search engines and your site’s visitor’s love new, updated information, blogs can be a great way of adding content to your site on a daily basis. You can use a blog to announce company news or comment on industry news, announce new product details or to create a “brand” or “personality” for your company.

Before you begin publishing your blog, think about what you’re customers want to know. Then, answer their questions on a daily basis. It won’t be long before you’ll have them, and the search engines hooked.

About The Author

Julia is an independent copywriter specializing in advertising and search engine marketing services. To learn more about how Julia can help boost your company’s profits visit her site at www.juliahyde.com. You may also like to sign up for Marketing Works! Julia’s monthly ezine. Visit www.juliahyde.com/form.html or email Julia for details.

info@juliahyde.com

December 07th 2008 Posted to Search Marketing + More

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