Ever wonder how to bring local visitors to your small business website with out spending a lot of money on advertising. One of the easiest ways to drive traffic to your local business is to ensure that your website is indexed in the search engines. By implementing these three strategies you will provide your local business website with an online presence, visibility and often times first page rankings. Make sure to do it right the first time and you will see increased traffic to your website.
No matter if your website is brand spanking new or you have been promoting your business online for some time now, this is by far one of the most beneficial free marketing and advertising avenues to drive internet traffic to your site.
Optimize For Best Results
It is very important to start by optimizing your website with relevant keywords including, but not limited to, your location and the areas your service. You may have offices in Cookeville, Nashville and Knoxville so make sure all locations are indexed and listed on your site. No matter what part of the country you maintain clients in you will want to make sure that search engines can detect what region you are targeting. For instance: Let’s say for example sake you own a service station in Cookeville, TN. Obviously you want customers from the Cookeville area to find your business. Chances are people with car troubles in Memphis are not going to use your services and finding your website will not benefit them.
You will also want to use keywords that closely target your exact services and products. When looking for a service station in Nashville, online searches will generally include the terms “Mechanic” or “Car Repair.” Having these keywords on your website will tell the search engines what types of customers to display your website to.
Google Is King
Next, you will want to list your URL with Google. What about the rest of the search engines you may ask? Well, I will get to that in a bit but for now I want you to focus on the biggest dominating search engine in the world. Google is king and will drive more traffic to your website than all the other search engines combined.
This will be the easiest thing you do all day. Simply click here and add your URL to Google. Once on the page you only need to type in your website address and click the button that says “Add URL.” After you receive your conformation email follow the instructions given to verify that you are the owner of this website.
Now, we are not quite done with Google yet. Your next step is to visit the Google Local Business Center. Here you will add “New Business Address.” Simply follow the instructions and in a week or so you should have a business listing under searches for businesses in your category of choice. Be patient, this does not happen over night due to the verification process but it is well worth ten minutes of your time.
Submit Your URL to Other Search Engines
You will also want to take the time to submit your website to other available search engines and website directories. For the most part this is a free service provided by a handful of reputable companies. Here are a few recommendations but you can find more by simply doing a search for “Submit or List My Website.”
Get your website listed today and start driving targeted local customers to your business.
P.S. Hey, did you notice that spiffy blue Facebook Share button up top? If you like this post and would like to help your friends then click that little blue widget at the top of this post. It’s definitely appreciated. Thank you.
