Going Local in Google

Google offers a number of ways to market your product or service locally. After all, not everybody is interested in selling to the entire planet.

If you want to use Google to market your business locally, the very first thing you should do is get yourself a Google Local Business Center account. It's free, and is a great way to appear at or near the top of page one for your particular type of business.

You've probably seen a map with local businesses appear in Google's search engine results from time-to-time. These businesses have local business accounts with Google. It's free, and thoroughly recommended.

The other way to show up at or near the top, is to make sure your site content...

• Is optimised for at least one useful key word phrase for your industry
• Contains your address in plain text on the homepage

Google can't read graphics, so make sure your address appears as text. Google can then index your site based on your town, suburb, post or zip code. If you really want to make sure, add your key word phrase and some form of geographic information to the title of your home page. For example, I might add one of the following to my title...

• Lead Generation London
• Lead Generation NW3