Great Little SEO Technique For Local Businesses

Here is an easy way to get yourself first page rank in Google using Backpage.com, Kijiji.com, and Craigslist (some sections). This works really well for Local business, but can also apply to long tailed keywords or phrases. For the purpose of this post, I am going to explain how I use this tactic, for local businesses.

First, you want to do your keyword research and analysis. There are a million good tools out there, but my favorite is Google Keyword tool (https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal). For example, if you own a landscaping business, take the top keyword "landscaping" or "landscape", and plop it in the keyword tool. This will give you other relevant words that relate to your business, and a rough idea of their monthly search volume.

Create your self a swipe file (word/notepad) with 20-30 top keywords. You can do more or less. This is up to you.

Second, what you want to do is make a list of all the towns, cities, and counties you do business in. Put them into the same swipe file but separate them.

Next, you want to start mixing keywords, with towns, cities, and counties. For example:

Cheap, Affordable, Landscaping Doylestown, PA
Landscape Design, Landscaping, Mulch Delivery Doylestown, PA
Lawn Mowing, Landscapes, Waterscaping Doylestown, PA
Hardscaping, Lawn Mowing, Landscape Design Warrington, PA
ect..ect...ect

You can make a huge list doing this.

Now, what you do is use them as titles when you post an ad in Backpage.com, Kijiji, and Craigslist. Google loves classified advertising site, and the ads index very fast!! Sometimes within hours of placing it.

Here is an example of some ads we ran for my brothers business.

2009-05-10_1621

The key is to cycle the titles every time you post, so that you will index under numerous keyword phrases.

*Tip- You also want to put a list of keywords within the ad body, at the bottom of the ad.
*Tip- Put Your URL, Business Name, and or Phone in the title of the ad. Because the ads expire within 30-45 days, once they click on it from the search engine, it will say "ad has been recently deleted". But if you put your URL, or Phone Number in the title, they still have a way to contact you.
*Tip- If you are using image code place the keyword/s in the alt tag. For example

<img src="http://i484.photobucket.com/albums/rr209/jstover77/imagead_backpage3.png" border="0" alt="doylestown landscaping"></a>


Because the ads expire after 30-45, you have to keep up with this. Eventually the ad de-indexes, and falls off the page.

Now, if you want to get a little more advanced, you can take this a step further. Take the titles that you used, and create blogs with them. I like to use WikiDot.com, or Blogger.com. Doesn't matter, as long as Google likes them. For example:

landscaping_doylestown.blogspot.com
landscape_design_warrington.blogspot.com

Use a generic template each time, just change the title header, and tags on each page. Also include some relevant content corresponding to the keywords in the title of your blog.

You can then use Backpage, Craigslist, and Kijiji to index these pages. So, make sure you include the URL corresponding to Keyword phrase in the ad. For example:

Title- Landscaping Doylestown, PA
Ad Body- We are the best landscaping company in the world. Check out our work at doylestown_landscaping.blogspot.com

Once Google indexes your blogs, they tend to anchor and stay there for much longer than an ad does, but they are both powerful methods.

*Tip- When you are doing your research, look at your competition. If you see that they are indexing with a certain website, just mimic it. Examples of other sites that tend to index quickly. Forums , local type sites, merchant circle, any type of site that you can post on basically.

For those of you looking for a business idea. This is pretty easy to implement, and you can sell it to local businesses in your area for good money!

I hope this helps any of you small business, local business owners out there. I am sure that there are some SEO guys out there that can chime in on this, with other suggestions.

Cheers,
John