How to SEO a local business website

[Dana_W]

So, I was looking for an ice skating rink that I know exists in a suburb right near me. Let's call in Suburbtown. I typed in "ice skating suburbtown." There are only 22,800 competing sites WITHOUT quotes.

So guess what came up?

A citysearch site came up first. Then a site called The Other Orlando. Then rinktime.com. Americantowns.com/fl/florida-skating-rinks. Floridaskating.com with a long list of skating rinks. A meetup site. family.go.com/travel site. The skating rink has a website but I could not find it ANYWHERE. I looked through 4 pages and could not find it anywhere. I finally found out the business name, looked it up under the business name, and found it.

Same thing for Ice Skating Rink and the name of that suburb, with 14,300 competing sites. There are other sites linking TO it, listing it on their sites, but the skating rink's website itself is nowhere to be found!

I've been thinking about doing the offline gold thing, so if you were approaching a business like this, how would you overcome their unbelievably sucky SEO?

My ideas: Have a tech-y type check the code & ensure that meta tags and page description and title tags are used appropriately.

Send out press releases linking to it, write articles for article directories linking to it, create a blogspot blog, squidoo lens, etc. linking to it, create more pages on the website and make sure that they have the name of the town and appropriate keyword phrases on every page - ice skating TOWN NAME, ice skating rink TOWN NAME, etc.

But I'd love to hear other suggestions. I'm just using this one place as an example, I'm not necessarily planning to approach them in particular.

[alexei_aus]

it really depends how your competitors setup their sites. i think you can outrank them given that there are only 22k competing websites.

just need some incoming links

[xlfutur1]

You are on the right track, just build links with the right anchor text. A service like Jon Leger's 3 way links work pretty good too, especially if you do not want to spend time with getting links. You would need access to their website thought to place a "resources" page. But articles, blog posts, etc will do the trick as well.

[Dana_W]

Thank you, guys! Appreciate it! Any more thoughts from anyone?

[mookinman]

This year I used these methods to get my T-shirt business to number 1 for our main keywords... (t-shirt printing in birmingham, black country t-shirts)...

1. Get listed on every free classifieds site you can find. GUMTREE is particularly effective for this! (UK only though!)
2. Set up a facebook & myspace (50%+ of our traffic comes from facebook)
3. Set up free blogs on blogger & wordpress about the various aspects of what we supply (i.e sports team t-shirts, custom printed hoodies)
4. Get other local websites to backlink to us
5. We make sure our products & service is second to none, so people actually come looking for us when they hear about us! I think this is the key. Put something out there that people are going to want to look find the source of, and make sure you've laid down the paths for people to find you.
6. I also put articles on ezine (if I can get them approved) and goarticles.

[Danny Turner]

get top rank in google - all day - everyday - simple - easy - go to google maps and list the business there - 5 minutes done - works fine - then it will show up for "ice skating suburbtown" - I'd lke to know how to get a business to rank on google maps for adjacent suburbs - having a google map on the site may help
Gumtree is in AUST too ( hey it is GUM tree) - and gets ranked high -good tip
Danny

[LADWebDesign]

Google is greatly improving their local search listings. All brick and mortar companies need to login to Google and get listed on their map. Google will also create coupons, allow uploaded pictures and videos, and provide for a general description of the service.

Every addition to the listing is verified either with a phone call from Google (automated) to the business, where the business must then provide a four digit passcode, or a postcard will be sent to the business where they will then call in and verify with the passcode.

This is all free for the local business.

There is also a place for for reviews for the business.

Yahoo is getting into the local search game as well, so the same things should be done over at yahoo.

Of course, this is in addition to all of the other suggestions mentioned above. It keeps me busy.

Linda

[Dana_W]

These are great tips. I haven't tried to do any SEO for local businesses yet, so this is all new to me. I'm still astounded at how terrible the SEO for their website is, and of course there are million more businesses like that out there - their websites are unfindable and basically a waste of money. Which is why I'd like to improve my skills in that area and help them solve the Invisible Website dilemma.

[Habitat]

I also was thinkin about the whole offline jig. SEO isn't really that much of a problem for me although these are all very good tips - but a question is how to approach the local business?

[Dana_W]

Here's "A Stupidly Simple Cash Cow" and it's FREE :-)

There's a huge long thread on this with a ton of great suggestions in it, on really easy ways to approach offline businesses and how to make money from them.

[Dana_W]

Ever since I got involved in internet marketing, I've noticed it when I try to search for something, like say "martial arts classes Orlando" and I have an incredibly hard time finding websites for the businesses that I KNOW exist.

It's only recently with all this talk here of offline gold, that I've come to realize "Gee, I could make money off that!"

[jan roos]

Dana, I wouldn't worry too much about the whole SEO thing for offline businesses as it is really easy to get them ranked high for their local keywords. All you do is make sure they have the right keywords in their title tags, meta tags and description tags. Many times that should be enough to get their site indexed and ranked high and it's very basic and easy to do.
Then all you do is write an article or 2 and maybe even a squidoo lens and link them all together and that should be it. You'll see results really fast I promise you.If you still need more then you just build some backlinks to their site by posting on related blogs and forums etc. If you get an SEO gig offline pm me and I'll be more than happy to help a fellow warrior. I am starting the offline thing as well and I know there is a goldmine out there.

Cheers

[Dana_W]

Thank you, Jan! I'm just baffled at why this ice skating rink's SEO is so awful. They are the only ice skating rink in their city! I've certainly used all the methods that you describe to get my own websites ranking well - I would assume that there's no reason that wouldn't work for their site as well. And thanks for your generous offer, I will take you up on that.

[Sandi Valentine]

It's low because, most likely, they know little to nothing about SEO. What's common knowledge to you is magical online stuff to them

What I've done, that worked pretty well, is make up a camtasia video for the business. As I searched for the terms they "should" be ranked for, for people to find them, I narrated what I was doing. Then I showed them their competitors sites and where they were in google. Then i went to google and did some keyword research in their niche, and showed them the traffic that they COULD be getting.

Then I took the video in to the business and offered it as a "free website evaluation". Cost me nothing, really, as I would have been doing the keyword research anyway in order to try to sell them the package. I just filmed the screen as I did it.


I was able to sell them an SEO package, and the work itself only took me an hour or so. It's a wordpress site, so I just used the wordpress seo plugin. That, along with a few keyword related posts and the free local business stuff mentioned above (google maps, coupons, etc.), and you have a recipe for a happy business owner.

[countonuspr]

You are on the right track, and your local client would have an instant advantage over the competitors because their whole website would be solely focused on that cities keyword phrase rather than focused on several hundred other keyword phrases. With good backlinks you should have no problem overtaking them in the search engines. You can also help yourself out by creating a video and submitting that with the cities name in the title of the video along with ice skating rink or whatever niche it is in. The link building will be the key here, but those other websites won't be completely insurmountable.

[stpicanada]

Great ideas experienced warriors!
It is refreshing to be in a group that speaks of the current economic situation with optimism.
Any comments on what charges a small business would be/has been prepared to pay to have this done for them?
Do you charge a 'package' price or a monthly fee for regular tuning?
Thanks

[tdpubs]

I'm actually starting that program right now. My program is a combo of Google Adwords, Google Maps, Google ads, Online press releases and article marketing. I have an article site Free Online Articles for your information that I use to place client articles. I also distribute their articles to 50 article sites.

The best way for me is to go to the Yellow Pages and contact the top ten advertisers in a heading. They are paying tons of money to be in the Yellow Pages. The chances are that they are not making any money from their website. They are also not getting much traffic that they can quantify.

I specialize in four local business markets. I have three prices that they pay on a monthly basis. $50.00, $100.00 and $300.00 a month.

This is a great and timely topic given the state of the economy.

[JJOrana]

Here are you should be doing:

1. Use Google webmaster tools to register your site to a specific geographic. If your domain say is ".com" and your target is Canada, specify it in webmaster tools. But if the domain is ".ca", you don't have to take this step.

2. In every page of your website, put at the footer the complete address including zip/postal code.

3. Put a complete address including zip/local code in the contact info.

4. Register your site to google local for free OR

5. For $30, you can pay Universal Business Listings for Online Yellow Pages, Search Engines, Local Directories and 411 Directory Assistance. A Universal Business Listing is a service that allows you to enter your critical business information one time and have it posted to all the major Online Yellow Pages, Search Engines, industry directories and 411 directory assistance.

- Jon

[Dana_W]

That's a great link, JJ!

STPinCanada - I'd offer a few pricing options. Frankly if you can get them ranked on the front page of Google for a few of their major keyword phrases I think that's worth AT LEAST a 1-time charge of $500, and then maybe a few hundred bucks a month to regularly create more links for them. That's my opinion.

[MaskedMarketer]

I see local clubs around me doing myspace advertising. They just set up a nice page and add people. If your going to have a myspace or blog page it would be wise to have people comment on how good the service or products are at this company. I'm sure you already know that.

Starting with local business is only the beginning. You can also do Niche Marketing in magazines to other businesses and you can sell them your internet services/business consultation. Like how some people sell marketing services to chiropractors and other types of professions that have there own magazine or trade journal- and want more customers..

[Johnny12345]

One quick tip for the "offline gold" thing:

You'll probably have better luck approaching local SERVICE businesses than RETAIL businesses.

For example, if you approach a carpet cleaner in Orlando, they can't clean carpets in Los Angeles -- so being found locally is extremely important to them.

But a local retailer can (and probably does) sell nationwide (or even worldwide). It's still important to retailers, but less so than for service businesses.

So, for best results, seek out the hungriest prospects.

Johnny

[IowaGal]

Originally Posted by Dana_W

These are great tips. I haven't tried to do any SEO for local businesses yet, so this is all new to me. I'm still astounded at how terrible the SEO for their website is, and of course there are million more businesses like that out there - their websites are unfindable and basically a waste of money. Which is why I'd like to improve my skills in that area and help them solve the Invisible Website dilemma.

First Dana, you cracked me up with your first post "unbelievably sucky SEO" - :-) - because most off-line businesses don't know any better.

What you'll find (having dealt with a few offline folks in my time) is that even the term "SEO" will make them stare at you with wide deer-in-the-headlights eyes. So you've got to choose a language that makes sense to them.

Chances are they're advertising in local mediums, the Penny saver's, local papers, church bulletins and the like and they still don't understand the significance of the Internet as it relates to their business.

So when you do approach them, tread carefully and use words and phrases that they'll related to - show them their competition online (this usually does the trick). If their competition can't be found, then see if you can't locate a competitor that at least has a map listing you can point out to the local business.

I'd also recommend David Preston's idea with auto-responder's and local businesses (he offers this for free) - Here's "A Stupidly Simple Cash Cow" and it's FREE :-)

- Kristine

[Dana_W]

I'm following you on Twitter now! Good advice. A year ago if you said SEO to me I would have been like "SEO What?"

[Liane]

Originally Posted by Dana_W

So, I was looking for an ice skating rink that I know exists in a suburb right near me. Let's call in Suburbtown. I typed in "ice skating suburbtown." There are only 22,800 competing sites WITHOUT quotes.

So guess what came up?

A citysearch site came up first. Then a site called The Other Orlando. Then rinktime.com. Americantowns.com/fl/florida-skating-rinks. Floridaskating.com with a long list of skating rinks. A meetup site. family.go.com/travel site. The skating rink has a website but I could not find it ANYWHERE. I looked through 4 pages and could not find it anywhere. I finally found out the business name, looked it up under the business name, and found it.

Same thing for Ice Skating Rink and the name of that suburb, with 14,300 competing sites. There are other sites linking TO it, listing it on their sites, but the skating rink's website itself is nowhere to be found!

I've been thinking about doing the offline gold thing, so if you were approaching a business like this, how would you overcome their unbelievably sucky SEO?

My ideas: Have a tech-y type check the code & ensure that meta tags and page description and title tags are used appropriately.

Send out press releases linking to it, write articles for article directories linking to it, create a blogspot blog, squidoo lens, etc. linking to it, create more pages on the website and make sure that they have the name of the town and appropriate keyword phrases on every page - ice skating TOWN NAME, ice skating rink TOWN NAME, etc.

But I'd love to hear other suggestions. I'm just using this one place as an example, I'm not necessarily planning to approach them in particular.

Also try hubpages (like squidoo, & also good with google), and definitely youtube. Make sure you put all those keywords in the description & title, & of course the link back to their website.

[blackbeltbob]

Dana

Its easy to dominate the search engines for local businesses.

I took a site and rank #1 out of 30 million pages.

I own the domain best research software and ranks #1 out of 34 million

Type in google best research software

Did you ever hear of good keywords software tool.

Well guess what I knocked that long established site to like position #4.

This is not to brag, but to let you know that you can dominate and help the local business if you do a little homework

Just be careful to who you listen too. Advice is cheap but demand to see results based on the persons opinion.

Just put up a new site and in a few weeks rank #1 out of 69,000 pages again just by listing the one page sales letter without trying.

Focus on the meta tags, kws in the html page.

Set up web 2.0 sites with articles pointing to the money site

set up a second row of web 2.0 sites linking to the first web 2.0 sites

submit videos using traffic geyser

you will dominate the search engines very easy.

you can just optimize the one html page and get #1 ranking

hope this helps

[IowaGal]

Originally Posted by Dana_W

I'm following you on Twitter now! Good advice. A year ago if you said SEO to me I would have been like "SEO What?"

LOL!!! You know, I learned that the hard way and then fell flat on my face when I realized I had to come up with a better explanation.

Have you ever tried to explain to people what it is that us IMers do? It's a lot harder than you might think.

- Kristine

[lawebdesign11]

Google local business center. Make sure to use keywords in company name.

[David]

Originally Posted by Habitat

I also was thinkin about the whole offline jig. SEO isn't really that much of a problem for me although these are all very good tips - but a question is how to approach the local business?

ahh, that's the rub...
How to approach the business!

I've been doing just this.. and I'm really REALLY glad I spotted this thread.

In my recent experience (see one of my Warrior blog posts) the local business owner is likely to be suspicious.

1. they know they should be doing something with the Internet
2. they think it's supposed to be cost prohibitive
3. they don't have the time nor expertise to manage it
4. they don't want to have to hire someone who does stuff they can't oversee

And they wonder if the ROI is there (return on investment)

I'm doing exactly what you proscribed... I had to, my CDL driving record is in the trash.

I'm probably going to get criticized or chastised for saying this but:

I'd rather make 10 $200 sales than 1 $500 sale.

I've got to pay my rent this way, I need a SALE NOW

PS, my current client list is this blog:
Search Engine Placement for any size business

[David]

Originally Posted by Danny Turner

get top rank in google - all day - everyday - simple - easy - go to google maps and list the business there - 5 minutes done - works fine - then it will show up for "ice skating suburbtown" - I'd lke to know how to get a business to rank on google maps for adjacent suburbs - having a google map on the site may help
Gumtree is in AUST too ( hey it is GUM tree) - and gets ranked high -good tip
Danny

Thanks for all these replies, even though it's not my thread, I'm eatin all this up!

In my experience, here in Maryland:

GoogleMaps - if there isn't much competition, it's a slam dunk
if there is...the page you enter better rank first. it's a GREAT way to get 'above' the top ten organic serps.

I've got a moving company client, in GoogleMaps, the keyword mover
ranks in the top 7 GMaps, try movers and I'm on the second page.

So, make sure the page will rank, will perform in the organic serps if you want to knock someone off the top 7 map listings

GumTree
I'd not heard of them, went there and in the US it's called Kijiki.com

and Kijiki.com classified ads DO rank well for the keywords I'm going after for my clients.


I'm going to track all my efforts, write em down and create a product for somebody starting out just like the post that started this thread.

will probably price it at $20 as what tricks DO work, might only work for a year or so... hell, I'm doing it, so can everyone else.

On the other hand, I've got extensive experience in cold calling, I'm a devastatingly effective salesman in person, so I do have an advantage.

[magnum3]

i guess they said it all.

[mtncboy]

great post to everyone, thanks for the insight!

[AndyBlackSEO]

Originally Posted by Dana_W

There's a huge long thread on this with a ton of great suggestions in it, on really easy ways to approach offline businesses and how to make money from them.

I was looking at doing this before. For geographical searches. The niche I was looking at was double glazing. I simply looked in the Yellow Pages (UK) and picked out the ones that had huge full colour, and very expensive annual adverts... which also had websites.

When I checked the rankings, the sites were nowhere to be found. My own sites rank no.1 and 2 in Google, as well as Google maps, so basically domainte my whole region for geographical searches. I never pursued these 'potential' customers as I fell into working on other online projects.... but there is definately money out there.

Best bet is to gather some keyword traffic stats and put together a kind of report and try and arrange a quick meeting with them. Once you have got one under your belt, you can use those stats and results to get more business... just blank out the company name of the first business to protect their interests and privacy.

Andy

[Dana_W]

I have always heard that one way to spot which businesses have the money is to look in the yellow pages and see who has full page ads. Genius strategy!

[David]

I didn't even need to look at keywords or anything like that.

Case in Point:

Joe's Upholstery Shop in Frederick MD

• This guys shop is within walking distance of my home.
• He already HAD a website
• That site was ALREADY in the top of google
• He didn't know to put email contact info
• He left his site unfinished.. didn't know how to change the title of the page

Before I did his SEO:

JOE'S UPHOLSTERY SHOP

After:

Go to Google
type this in:

frederick md upholstery

You get this:

frederick md upholstery - Google Search

I count NINE listings that Joe's Upholstery is DOMINATING the local competition.

SEVEN of those listings I made him...

Results 1 - 10 of about 46,800 for frederick md upholstery

you tell me if he's happy...

call the phone number and ask him if he's getting more work now.

[Richard Tunnah]

Originally Posted by M4UNow

HI Dana,

That's funny I just wrote this today I'll post it below.
Sounds like you felt my pain today.

I am launching a course soon to teach people how to do the very things being asked in this thread.

As far as the how to approach cold call really is the best way.
You can send a flier sure. Explaing what you do...

But visiting and cold call ranks the highest for response. Hands down.
Simply introduce, tell them you are a marketing consultant and specialize in getting there sites found...

Best opener is "Is your website making you money?'

Is Im's know its not so your there to help and save them
Put their website to work the way it's supposed to.

Hope you enjoy
Take care
Gina


We have this high end magazine down here in South Jerey, right.

80 pages Remember high end it's glossy real expensive to place an ad they want like a 3 month contract
and I believe 3/4 page ads which is the average size, are like 700 a month ok

You with me....

Now I am persusing it 'cuse i like have nothing else to do today,
Yeah im working on 12 projects at the same time

but anyhoo

back to this magazine it came in the mail today it's a once a month thing.

Im on page 37 right now and I have checked 18 business ads local within 10 miles or so of me. In this magazine
10% don't have a site and the other 90% are not SEO'd at all.

You couldnt find their websites if you tried.

Ok here's a good example there is an ad for an interior design store in the town of Linwood.

Now it caters to hoyty toyty folks. Anyway most ritzy people go to "interior designers" IMHO anyway.

We have tons of Multi million dollar beaches here at the shore.

And if you put into google Interior design linwood NO WHERE TO BE FOUND.

ARGHHHHHHHH pisses me off to no end.

Really designers are you serious you cant get a site to be found for the town the business is in REALLY?

Are you KIDDING ME???

told you I'm on a rant.

These nimbiciles business owners pay for sites then pay for ads but don't care if anyone finds them?
I'm losin it sorry.

Now I have to push my 999 things to do on monday aside and call these idiots.
the worst part is 50% or better won't care...

That's the real kicker
Here's what they say,

I don't have any money
The economy is bad
I've spent my budget this year.

yada yada yada

If their site was done right in the first place maybe they
WOULD HAVE MONEY....

Oh and by the way only 1 had an optin.

SO not only do they NOT care about throwing money away on a website that doesn't
produce but they don't care about staying in touch with whomever may walk
through their door, and try to contact them later

But they do care about Crying the blues.

Kills me

So guys if have SEO experience throw on your combat gear open up
your local advertising books and go make some money.

And people who can do Email marketing You do the same.

Damn it it's time to SAVE THE WORLD..

Who's In?

Gina...that's the line I use! It's very...very effective. The reason being certainly in the UK is according to a recent business chambers of commerce (UK) 86% of small to medium business owners say their website has brought nothing extra to their business. So that proves how HUGE the opportunity is.

Rich

[Dana_W]

Wow, David, using a blogspot blog like that is sheer genius.

[David]

Thanks Dana!

I HAD to use blogspot blogs, I was starting from a DEAD STOP, zero cash flow!

see this Warrior Blog post: http://www.warriorforum.com/blogs/david/1301-sell-seo-homeless-shelter.htm

I've got some other tricks I'm not telling... told too much already, got a WSO brewing... "Instant Cashflow for BROKE marketers" or something to that effect.

But in a nutshell, blogspot blogs don't have the SEO staying power of a conventional website see this thread in this same SEO section of this forum:


http://www.warriorforum.com/adsense-ppc-seo-discussion-forum/3527-how-do-i-get-out-googles-sandbox.html

One of these factors it the "freshness factor" (a.k.a. QDF) that will temporary boost the ranking of newly added pages. After this "freshness factor" boost wears off, your web page will drop to it's truly deserving rank.

OK, so a blogspot blog will 'temporarily' rank... I've got more than one way to "skin this cat" and I'm gonna put that and the other tricks I've developed into a WSO ebook.

[Matt D]

David,

Thanks for posting and I read your blog post. Very inspirational story. You should have a pre-announcement list for your wso. I'd be interested, but would probably miss it on the wso board because I don't check it all that often.

Matt

[myob]

I built a regional business portal for my local area and advertise the site heavily on billboards, radio, TV, newspapers and direct mail along with SEO. Charge $2500 for a 5 page website and $50 per month thereafter. My leads comes from the yellow pages.

[johnmiley]

Hi Dana,

If their SEO is terrible, just go with it. You don't need to fix their SEO, if you want to make money from them, you just need to out-rank them, and leave their site in the dust.

I'd consider talking to them about paying you to make a site that actually shows up on page one of Google. If your page shows up, they pay you $x/month to keep it there. As long as the page is on page one, you get paid.

Put a contract in place, contingent upon you delivering on your promise, and then get to work on it. If you had a five page site, Digg it, Ping it, and put some KW specific content on it, you'll have some residual income coming in very soon.

Another angle (there are many) is to create a placeholder site to show them what you can do, get that to rank, and then have them pay you to list their arena only, or charge multiple arenas $ for advertising...i.e, "how would you like to have your arena listed on this site, on page one of Google?"

These are just two of many possibilities, but I hope it gets your creative juices going.

Best of luck...

[Solidsnake]

Local business needs offline promotion... pamphlets will do good..

[scene4u]

I doubt it will take much SEO work for you to rank for the terms that you are suggesting. Just make sure you have good content on your site, keyword density of 2-5% for the terms you want to rank for and make sure the keyword terms appear in your meta data.

[desmondchui]

find the best keyword, write some unique, niche content, and you will go up Google

[alvinhuang]

Just as many others have mentioned. Its alot easier for local businesses to rank organically if there aren't other competitors around.

Though I'm just curious, if its the only ice rink in the city. Wouldn't everyone have heard of it by now?

I provide SEO consultation to several MNCs and SMEs in my country. And for our clients we generally provide a list of reports to them. (Corporates just love reports *shrugs*)

Keyword Research -

Corporates will tell you what words they want to rank for and think they know best. Sometimes even if the keyword doesn't have search count. Sometimes you have no choice but to just SEO it that way for them (Much easier)

But to value-add. Besides ranking for the obvious keywords. Go for breadth instead of just ice skating etc. Maybe along the lines of family outings, school outings etc.

Online Current Optimization Report
Their title tags, meta tags and descriptions are usually quite back and you can just provide a simple analysis of their current onpage optimization, URL structure, URL names etc. And of course the recommendations you want them to implement. (Or for an additional fee you'll change it for them)

Competitor Analysis Report
If there are competition, reasons why they are outranking them. Amount of backlinks, quality of backlinks, onpage optimization etc.

SEO Strategy Report
The offpage stuff that you plan to do. They tend to get real bored here as it might be rather technical but some clients are interested. No harm telling them as they don't have the know-how to implement it and they know its better to get a specialist to do it.

After which then starts the offpage optimization with the various strategies mentioned by yourself and other forumers.

The reports can be overkill sometimes but from experience, the big corporates dig them. So you can adjust it accordingly depending on the client

For us, we charge them an initial startup fee and then a monthly retainer for at least 6 months. Can't disclose too much here but if you are interested to know more. Feel free to PM me.

Alvin Huang

[maestero2010]

as there being not more competition thus you can go on for getting quality inbound link and this will make the trick.......

[Dana_W]

Hey Alvin - re - would everyone have heard of the ice rink by now - well, look at it this way, I was looking for a skating rink in my area and couldn't find it just by searching...it's a suburb right next to Orlando, and Orlando is a huge city where new people are constantly moving in and out, so there's always going to be a potential customers who can't find that rink because they look online and it's nowhere to be found.

[Bruce Hearder]

I did some SEO for a client of mine (a local chiropractor) who had a website up for years and years, and when they typed their own URL into Google they couldn't even find themselves..

These guys are no different to +50% (maybe 95%) of all small business out there..

I change some of their page titles (Put their main keyword on their home page), and then gabe then just 4 links in 4 different link directories. Not one of these link directories has a PR of greater than ZERO..

BAM!!! Within 2-3 days, they are either #1 or #2 in google for their main search term..

I remember reading somewhere on the web (maybe it was Arron's SEOBook.com site, i can't recall) that said that that research had shown that 95% of all websites on the web have less than 100 links pointing to them..

The way I read this is, that if we can get more than 100 links to a site, we are doing better than 95% of all our competitors.

Getting Local business to rank well in the search engines is easy.. Only becuase everyone's elses website are so poorly SEO'ed..

Take care

Bruce

[ezza17]

You hit the nail on the head there Bruce!

Local stuff is SOOOO much easier to rank highly for with a few links and some basic onsite tweaks (title tags, headline & perhaps a little body copy adjustment) compared to more generic sites.

My girlfriend's aunt just spent 1 hour trying to find a nice restaurant we could all go to locally for her b/day, just using some locality qualifiers (she didn't have a name in mind - just wanted to find what was available in the area she wanted to go to) and got no where!

Useless website designers are shooting their clients in the foot by not adding even the most basic of SEO functionality to help their clients get found.

Oh well, given I work for an SEO firm, that makes my job easier when it comes to selling them on our services :-) and then implementing ;-)