There Is Two Distinct Methods To Local Optimization, Onsite & Offsite. We will discuss both methods & their importance.
At last count there are 28.9 million small US businesses, 64% of patrons and small company owners use the world wide web to find content about local companies and 81% use search engines. That being said there’s is an opening for local SEO. No one can totally control what appears in local search, but local business owners can take actions to make sure that what does get listed is a good depiction of their company.
Why Onsite & Offsite SEO Must Be Coordinated. 1.    Offsite optimization can not cover the hundreds if not thousands of keywords that are
relevant to your local business.
2.    Offsite optimization can not cover deferent variations of the same word Example of singular and plural rankings: Houston Storage Unit (rank F), Houston Storage Units (rank E). Example of order of words ranking Storage Units Houston (rank C).
3.    Offsite optimization lacks the ability to localize wide area zip codes. Onsite optimization of zip codes can influences local results. Example: Adding Area Codes onsite to “ Near Town Mini Storage“ website Keyword “mini storage” and then zip code number 77003, 77004, 77210, 77006, If you service all of the Houston area use multiple drop down windows.
4.    Onsite keyword optimization can influence rankings in a local listing where the keywords do not appear. Example: In the keyphrase “private storage Houston (rank C)” the word “private” does not appear in any local directory listing. Google has always transferred anchor text keywords from 1 page to another page that is related but does not have the searched for word on the receiving page. This is an example of anchor text transfer from a website page to Google listing page.
5.    Onsite optimization can not produce local results but can influence results in any local service directory like Google local.
Another onsite and offsite way to gain notice of search engines and customers is to target your content to your local area. If you’re targeting a specific area, write about things that are important to those viewers. Create articles about things that relate to them like what might help them save time, save money, be happier, etc... Example Near Town Mini Storage offers inside air-conditioned loading and unloading dock, which would appeal to a lot of potential customers because of the heat and humidity in the Houston area.
Finding Keywords For Your Localization Project Is The Key To Success In Local SEO
Take the time to find the right keywords to use with free tools like Wonder Wheel or Google Keyword Tool. You need to go above and beyond basic words when you optimize for a specific local area like Houston. This narrows your competition and increases your relevancy to local web surfers.
Example of Local Companies Onsite & Offsite SEO Optimization Results
My company www.seo411.com in 2009 converted a prior clients “brochure” website www.neartownministorage.com to a application based optimized search engine friendly website. Their top 15 keywords according to Google Keyword Tool and the results are listed below with “Houston Storage” being their number 1 keyword.
*Note 4 reviews 3 positive 1 negative on yahoo local. Some negative reviews add credibility. Also order of words is important. Example: Houston Self Storage (Rank E) vs. Self Storage Houston (Rank C) have different rankings
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houston storage “rank D” (check reviews) storage in Houston “rank D” storage Houston “rank D” houston storage units “rank E” storage unit houston “rank C” storage units houston “rank C” houston storage unit “rank E” houston self storage “rank E” self storage houston “rank C” self storage in Houston “rank C” houston texas storage “rank A” private storage houston “rank C” storage units in houston “rank C” auto storage Houston “rank F” houston mini storage “rank “C” Here is an example of a yahoo local listing for “mini storage houston”
Below Are 10 Easy Things We Did Online And Offline To Optimize “Near Town Mini Storage” For Local Search To Attract Local Customers.
1. Claim your profile. (You must have an account to submit your site) It’s as simple as logging into Merchant Circle, Google Places, Bing Local and Yahoo Local, Yelp, Foursquare and walking through the easy steps one of which consists of a phone call or post card from the local listing company to confirm your address.
At present an enormous number of yellow pages like websites permit you to update your business info free of charge. These websites produce a lot of traffic and tend to rank well in search engines. At minimum claim your profile and get a back link to your site. You may get a lot of traffic for your company from these free listings. Below is a list of sites that offer a free business listing.
•    Local.com Free Business Listing •    Superpages.com Free Listing •    Yellowpages.com Create A Listing •    IBeginSource.com •    AllPages.com •    Insider Pages •    Kudzu.com Basic Profile •    MagicYellow.com
2. Share Your Pictures.
Local site listing services like to provide their users with images of your company. To help make certain that potential clients see some quality photographs and upload them to each listing provider. They don’t
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have to be professional photos, but they will represent your business so make sure they are of very good quality. Photos of Near Town Storage that were uploaded.
Invest time and if necessary, money, into keyword research that can help you determine what words and phrases to use in localization, titles, anchor text, picture names, and html file names.
3. Control information across the internet.
A big part of local search optimization and marketing involves submitting your information and obtaining links from other sites. Local listing aggregation services (Aggregator refers to a web site or computer software that aggregates a specific type of information from multiple online sources) search the internet far and wide to find pictures, reviews and any information they can on your company. Submit your info to services like Localeze & updateUSA.
4. Ask for reviews. Most local sites, except for Yelp, are fine with you telling your customers to review you. So do it. On your contact form, thank you page, on invoices, on email communications and make a point to say “Hey we’d love it if you gave our company a evaluation on Google/Bing/Yahoo Local and give them a hot link to each.” These reviews, good or bad, make your business more creditable to future customers.
5. Bad reviews are good.
No business is perfect, so when users see all positive reviews, something looks suspicious and they may actually choose a different company. Bad reviews are a part of any business and a few bad reviews can make the high-quality reviews that much better. Clearly, you do not want to push bad reviews.
6. Add local phone number.
On your website, be sure to publish your local phone number in text in the footer or header. Posted toll free numbers will not help localization
7. Have a full physical mailing address on all pages of your website.
Your physical address is very significant and it should be in text and in footer or header of all pages of your website to support your geographic local location.
8. Think like the customer doing the search.
What would your customers put in a search box to find you and buy your products? Take the time to find the right keywords to use like Wonder Wheel or Google Keyword Tool. You need to go above and beyond basic words when you optimize for a specific local area. This narrows your competitors and increases your relevancy to local web surfers.
9. Using Filler Keywords When Possible & Keyword Research In many cases, long tail keyword searches are what people use when they have a good idea of what they want. People will search for phrases that indicate strong choices, such as filler keywords with “best”, “affordable”, “store”, “discount” or “dealer” or words that dictate buying, such as “buy”, “sales” or “online”. Add in a geographical element like Houston, and you could target someone looking to buy the best online lighting product or sales right now. Example: best parking lot lighting Houston or Houston commercial lighting sales or Houston commercial lighting accessories.
Let’s say you own a lighting store. If a searcher puts put ‘lighting’ into a search box, they probably will revise their search because lighting is such a broad term. If they refine their search to “lighting ideas’ you’re still not a match as your lighting store doesn’t focuses on lighting ideas. If they refine their search again to ‘tennis court lighting” you can target your customer to the exact page and product they were searching for. Example: Do a search using localization & filler keywords like sales, accessories, dealer, discount or online with the core keyword “tennis court lighting”.
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Local Level Search: tennis court lighting houston or parking lot lighting houston *(If you relied on offsite optimization only your site would not show up. You must do both.
State Level Search: tennis court lighting texas (no local listing shown) or tennis court lighting new york (no local listing shown)
Country Level Search: tennis court lighting japan Global Regional Search: Mideast tennis court lighting
You can also create a national local presence with footer localization by city or localize by state presence by using drop down menus.
10. Treat Customers Right
Everyone knows that they need to treat the customer right, but with social media outlets like Facebook, Twitter (watch seo video for fb and twitter), review sites and the ability for good, or bad, news to spread like wildfire, you need to treat your customers really good. This includes online and offline customer service.
Geo Targeting SEO Websites do rank differently in the search engine result pages of different countries. You want your site to rank well in the SERP of the country that your business targets. When setting up the SEO strategies your website, you should consider the geo-targeting factors below.
Top-Level Domain
A top-level domain (TLD) indicates to the search engines the location of your site.
␣    Use a .co.uk domain name if the majority of your customers are from the UK
␣    Use a .cn domain if you are to target customers mainly from China
␣    Target a specific city requires a sub-domain off the TLD. Example: london.yourtld.co.uk
Local Hosting
All search engines can establish your website’s location by where you host your site. You should make
sure to host your site in the country where you are targeting.
However, there are exceptional cases. For instance, your site can be hosted with a UK hosting company,
but the servers (and IP addresses) of this company are actually outside of the UK. Your site will not rank
well in the UK.
Business Address
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Acquire a local business address in the country you are targeting and add it to the footer of your website
that can certainly assist Google in determining the location of your website.
Language
It helps to have the website’s content being in the language of the country that you are targeting. It helps
further when the copy is optimized so that for instance UK English can be distinguished from US English.
Example: The word Custom In The US, Bespoke for UK
Inbound Links
Google has been using this extensively. If the majority of your site’s inbound links are from UK-based
websites, even though your target audiences are actually Australians, your web pages will be ranked
higher on Google UK than on Google AU.
Google’s Local Traffic
Google has also been using this information. If the majority of your site’s visitors via Google are mainly
from Australia, your web pages will be ranked higher in Australia than in the UK.
Webmaster Tools
Under the “Set geographic target” option in your Google Webmaster Tools account, choose “associate a
geographic location with this site” and pick the preferred country for your website to geo-target.
For more information, here is a list of local SEO blogs that go into details that might be of some interest to local business owners that want more in depth information on local SEO.