Want to Reach More Local Customers - Try Local Search Engine Optimization (Local SEO)

Local SEO including Google places offer a lot of opportunities for your business to reach your local customers. Google Places is a fairly new program. Google introduced it in October 2010. It is more budget oriented compared with a full search engine optimization (SEO) campaign. In most cases it is less expensive than a pay-per-click (PPC) campaign and it presents great opportunities for potential customers to find and connect to your business.

It is very interesting to know that it DOES FIT well a start up business and yes, you can STILL USE it if your website is in flash, JavaScript or any other not so friendly search engine technologies. Local SEO is a perfect program for any business to use and start his internet marketing journey.

Your local SEO may start with your Google Places listing. Google Places is the digital “yellow pages” directory for the 21st Century.

See example:

In order to get your business listed your Places page has to be claimed or created. Then your local Google listing has to be enhanced and optimized with pictures, videos, client reviews and more.

Google Places builds a dynamic page, presenting your business, with combined information from what you have submitted and what Google crawler finds around the web about your business. The listing includes business contact details such as your business name, location, phone number, fax, email, website address, if you have one. Additional details include: pictures, videos, clients’ reviews, etc.

Years ago, when the Internet started, it was much more difficult to get local results. Now, new technologies allow the search engines to determine the location of the users. In many cases the users have become more educated and they enter a geo-specific descriptor in the search terms. Examples are: “dentist Chicago”, “carpet cleaning Orange County”, etc. Nowadays consumers prefer to use and search for local business and support their communities. With these trends Local Internet Marketing, Local SEO and Google Places will gain additional popularity.

Local SEO and Google Places offer opportunities for businesses to get higher website ROI and expand their local market share.

“GOOGLE PLACES” provides an opportunity for businesses to implement and take advantage of Local Search Engine Optimization (Local SEO)

In October 2010 Google introduced a new type of natural search results (local SEO results) - “Google Places” - a new and a more effective way for every business to reach more local customers.

Before “Google Places”, a local-oriented query in Google like “Chicago business attorney” might have returned a “7-pack” of Maps results followed by normal organic web page results. Now, queries like this will return a page of hybrid web results with Google Maps listing information below each qualified result. The map that is part of the local results is now moved to the top right of the page above the paid search listings.

As a result of this change now 'Google Places' data is more prominent. Google Place pages’ content is more important, as users are now exposed to more of the local results on the standard web search results page (SERP).

Proceed Innovative will be hosting a FREE SEMINAR "Get Noticed on Google!"
Join us and learn about the newest programs such as Google Places, our Local SEO, Mobile SEO programs and how to apply them to your business.

Google Buzz Gmail Integration

Google makes it easy for Gmail users to get social and start conversations using Google Buzz. The users' reactions to the new social networking service are controversial. Google Buzz will reflect on SEO as well.
Let us know what you think about Google Buzz - post a comment or answer the poll question. Thank you!

Holiday Marketing Promotion

The holidays are here and we will welcome the new year soon. It is time to look at what we have achieved so far, but also to find new opportunities for better ROI.

With the boom in Internet technologies and social media websites, online marketing is becoming a-must-have strategy for every business.

To get results, you need more than a pre-defined suite of marketing tactics. Proceed Innovative will consult with you on your Internet marketing objectives, analyze your website design and search engine optimization goals, help define successful web metrics and analytics, and provide a complete set of integrated marketing tactics to accomplish your business objectives.

Holiday Marketing Promotion: Contact us for customized FREE analysis of your Internet marketing opportunities or register for our FREE Internet Marketing Seminar - "Get Noticed on Google!".

What do we do with all this traffic from Google?

We recently optimized a website for a new client. After the high rankings and website traffic kicked in, they sent us this question:

“How do we take all this traffic and start converting them to clients?”

Here are a few ways to improve web usability and accomplish this:

• Go through every page and make sure it has a well-written call to action. Something on the page ought to urge visitors to click. Putting the call to action at the top of each page helps people understand where to click next. Move the traffic where you want it to go.
  

• Create a blog, e-zine, and/or free white papers. Analyze which perform best at persuading visitors to convert to clients.
  

• See how long it takes your main pages to load. Nobody wants to wait around for a page to load when they can just hit the back button.
  

• Add a live chat representative. “She” can help visitors throughout their visit to your website, offer customer service and improve conversions.
  

These are only a few suggestions…please let us know what you’ve tried.