Search Engine Optimization: For Dummies®, 3rd Edition

Chapter 10. Finding Traffic via Geo-Targeting

In This Chapter

• Optimizing your pages for geo-targeting

• Understanding how local search works

• Submitting to the major local-search systems

• Finding more places to submit

Increasingly, the Internet is being used as a tool for finding local resources. You can find not only information or buy online, but you can also find homes for sale in your neighborhood, compare local independent insurance agents, and shop at stores close to you that sell the products you need. Thus, it's increasingly important to keep geo-targeting in mind when optimizing for search engines — that is, to target by not only a searcher's keyword but also by the searcher's geographic location.

Wait! Before you skip this chapter because you have a purely online business, you need to understand the two basic reasons you should consider geotargeting:

• You have a local business.

• Your prospects — your target customers — search locally.

Say you are a local business. You sell insurance in your town or own a local health-food store or are a personal trainer with clients within a 5-mile radius. Clearly, you don't need to rank well on the terms insurance, health food, or personal training. You need to rank well on the terms insurance denver, health food waco, or personal training Paducah. There's no point in competing for general terms against hundreds of thousands of other companies when you're interested in a fraction of the searches.

But, say you're not a local shop for local people. You ...