One of the most underused, easy, Free and valuable SEO tools in is getting your site listed in Local Search. In a short amount of time, your web site can be number 1 in the SERP. A perfect example is a client of ours located in a very competitive marketplace, Manhattan NYC. They are positioned literally on top of all their competitors, as their site comes up often times as #1 in local search and at time dominates the entire SERP page.

CitySearch, Yahoo Local and Google Local and Google’s Beta Google Voice are among the most visited sites

Try searching the term “Web Development NYC”, in Google you will see GVP.DSJ Inc is #1 for local search. in Yahoo you will also see GVP.DSJ Inc is #1 for local search, as well as #2 in the organic listing, in Citysearch they are also #1, and in Yelp GVP.DSJ Inc is again #1. Using Google Voice Local the same client comes out on top. To try Google Local Voice yourself 1800 GOOG411 and here the results, say “Web Development", if you are asked to eneter a zip code, enter 10014, or for intersection say "Houston Street" (prononounced How-Ston), again you will "hear"GVP.DSJ Inc.

InfoUSA , Yelp , Local.com , Insider Pages and other secondary local guides can also give your business a nice boost to your rakings while providing some good and generally free PR for your company, business and web site.

Another benefit of local search results is that they build targeted links within other engines back to your site. Using the same client as an example, searching Google Search  for “web development 10014” reveals some startling results.  GVP.DSJ Inc. is #1 in local search, but look at the following organic natural search results; #1, is another site that keads back to GVP.DSJ Incs site, #2, 3 and 4 are results from Citysearch site again for same client, #5 is from Yahoo Local again for same client. Additionally Google ranks GVP in position #19 for the same search. The end result is that the Google SERP page that produces 300,000 results is absolutely dominated by GVP.DSJ inc, taking the top 6 positions out of 10.

Making a little effort can pay off big, when it comes to local search!

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This entry was posted on Thursday, July 5th, 2007 at 7:44 am and is filed under SEO Tips and Tricks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.