| Let me give you a new distinction. It's an important one | | | | business to benefit from now. |
| that not many people are aware of yet. | | | | By "local listing" services, I mean applications that are |
| Your company's website is a business asset. Its | | | | focused on helping consumers find goods and |
| usefulness is limited by how many qualified visitors it | | | | services near their current location. Google Maps, Yelp, |
| gets. Especially for lead or sales generation, SEO - | | | | Google Local Business, Yellowpages.com, Mapquest, |
| Search engine optimization - is a powerful way to | | | | Citysearch, and more. The list of such services |
| encourage search engines to bring in your best clients. | | | | changes constantly; new ones emerge and |
| In the past five or ten years, there have been two | | | | yesterday's champions fade. As a phenomenon, |
| main kinds of SEO. The first is called "on site" SEO. | | | | though, it seems to have real staying power. |
| That is what YOU (or your webmaster) place on the | | | | All of them allow a business to submit their information |
| website: the words chosen for your copy, the page | | | | into their local-business database. So if your company |
| title, the copy in the header tags, and the "meta" | | | | has a website, you want to make sure each local |
| parameters that search engines read when crawling | | | | listing service has your information. |
| your website. | | | | The location targeting can be a tremendous boon. A |
| Since it's your website, you have 100% complete | | | | client who owns a boat-rental business in Lewisville, |
| control over what goes on it. That's "on site" SEO. | | | | Texas asked us to help improve his search engine |
| Off-site SEO has to do with what other people on the | | | | rankings. His prospects will search for the words "boat |
| web say about your website. When they link to your | | | | club", but there is fierce competition for that in search |
| website, the words they choose to place in that | | | | engines. |
| clickable link are considered very carefully by search | | | | But properly setting up his Google local business listing |
| engines. | | | | changed everything. We were able to get his site at |
| Imagine your company sells bicycles. One of your | | | | the TOP of Google's search results for "Lewisville |
| happy customers has a blog, and writes a positive | | | | boat club" within one day! |
| review of their bicycle-buying experience. In the article, | | | | Another client, the owner of a firearms training |
| they place a web link to your website, with the words | | | | business, had a similar experience. Before we started, |
| "bicycle store." When someone clicks on "bicycle | | | | we couldn't find his website in search engines at all. But |
| store", they are taken to your company site. | | | | we were able to get his page to be NUMBER ONE in |
| The search engines will take that link as an | | | | the local business search results for "firearms training" |
| endorsement. When someone visits Google or Bing or | | | | in San Francisco! All thanks to properly setting up his |
| Yahoo!, and types in "bicycle store", your website is | | | | company's entries in local listing services. |
| now more likely to come up on the first page of | | | | Local listing SEO is becoming more and more |
| results. That's off-site SEO. | | | | important. In fact, at Mobile Web Up, we expect it to |
| By analogy, on-site SEO is what you proclaim about | | | | matter for many years, especially for your prospects |
| yourself. Off-site SEO is what other people are saying | | | | who go online with mobile devices. That's why we |
| about you. | | | | include local listing SEO in our standard mobile website |
| In 2009, a new phenomenon began to emerge: the | | | | service. |
| local listing service. It's making a new form of SEO | | | | Make sure your online strategy is giving your company |
| possible... call it "Local Listing SEO". And it's ripe for your | | | | the best chance of success. |