This Simple SEO Step Can Dramatically Improve Search Engine Placement for Your Local Business

Let’s say that you run a small business and you want your website to appear in searches for your local keyword. For example…

• Chicago Pizza
• Cincinnati Wine store
• St. Louis Dairy
• Bethesda Chiropractor
• Bethesda Maryland Lawyer
• etc…

One of the ways to do this is to create  search engine optimized anchor text. Here’s the difference between the most frequent form of links and the superior SEO anchor text:

Let’s say you’re me. And let’s say that I’m marketing on other sites (i.e., forums, blogs, or article distribution sites). When I have the chance to include a link back to my site, I could simply link like this:

Visit LocalSEMExperts.com

When search engines see this, they think: “oh, that LocalSEMExperts.com word points to http://localsemexperts.com”… and so my site gets a “vote” which contributes to my search engine ranking. That’s what most businesses do when linking back to their site.

BUT if I instead linked my website address to the phrase:

Visit the Maryland Internet Marketing Agency

… then I get the “vote” for the link back to my site PLUS the search engines associate my website with “Maryland Internet Marketing Agency” and I can begin to appear for that phrase, too. So next time someone types “maryland internet marketing” or “maryland marketing agency” into the search engines, I’m more likely to appear.

These custom anchor texts give your local business a very powerful way to target your business to your local clients. So, identify a few keyword phrases you want to be searchable for (usually your locale and a main keyword) and create anchor links with those as I’ve shown above.

If you don’t want to do this work yourself, please see our Local Domination Service Packages

3 Common SEO Mistakes

I just read a great blog (via @DemetriosDallis on Twitter) by John McCarthy of WebMetro. In his blog, entitled “D’oh! Not-so-best SEO Practices”, he writes about 3 mistakes he’s seen businesses make on their websites. You can read the article here but I’ll summarize it below.

1. Domain names… lots of domain names. McCarthy doesn’t say that having lots of domain names is a bad thing. In fact, it’s a good thing. But what you do with those domain names is the real key.

2. Spider blocking. I had no idea that this was as common as McCarthy suggests. Apparently, lots of businesses accidentally keep their website from being indexed because of some incorrect code. Easy to fix (and devastating if you don’t).

3. Expiring domains. This one makes sense. Google tends to rank sites higher if their domain name or SSL registration is set to expire soon. The thinking is: The longer a website is registered for, the better.

Local businesses can benefit by carefully navigating these SEO pitfalls. Read McCarthy’s article to find out how to make sure that local buyers can find you.

The Evolution of Google’s Online Search

When Google swooped in a few years ago with their groundbreaking ideas and secret algorithm, website owners tweaked and adjusted their websites and slowly learned what was effective and what wasn’t.

The bottom line for Google was a very website-searcher-centric idea: Put the most authoritative sites first. The more authoritative it was, the higher it should rank. (Which makes sense for internet users who are using search to find something).

They measured authoritativeness by a variety of factors, including keywords, backlinks, and more.

Rand Fishkin, SEOmoz‘s CEO, wrote a very compelling blog in which he talked about how Google’s rankings algorithm has changed over time. He even provided a handy chart which shows an estimation based on Fishkin’s experience and observations.

Essentially, he says that authoritativeness is still key at Google and they measure 4 basic things:

• The authority of the domain
• Anchor text
• Keyword usage
• Backlinks

View his chart below and read the blog post here.

Increase PageRank With This Simple Step

When people are searching for your business, they rarely go past the bottom of the second page of their Google search results. If they can’t find what they’re looking for by page 2, they’ll revise their search parameters.

What a motivator to get into the top 20 (or, better yet, the top 10) of Google search! And the way to do that is with better PageRank. The higher your PageRank, the higher you’ll appear.

One of the ways to get higher PageRank is to be linked to from higher PageRanked pages. So, if your site’s PageRank is 3, strive to be linked to from pages that have a PageRank of 4 or more.

I like to use this tool, Google PageRank Checker, before I post anything on another site.

Now, that’s not to say that you shouldn’t avoid lower PageRanked pages. But if you have to spend your time somewhere, focus on the higher PageRanked pages.

According to Google PageRank Checker, here are a few pages to link back to your site from:

Wikipedia.org (PageRank: 9/10)

Twitter.com (PageRank: 9/10)

About.com (PageRank: 8/10)

LinkedIn.com (PageRank: 8/10)

Squidoo.com (PageRank: 7/10)

Suite101.com (PageRank: 7/10)

SEO Conundrum

As a business owner, you have two distinct actions you want your customers to take: You want them to find your website and then you want them to buy from you. You help them find your website with search engine marketing, which is a combination of off-site content distributed around the web and on-site content that attracts searchers. And you help them buy from you with on-site sales content.

How search engine optimization fits in

Search engine optimization (SEO) plays a big part in the first step of this activity. You might incorporate SEO techniques into articles and press releases you distribute around the web; and at the same time, you might incorporate SEO techniques on your website so that it’s easier for search engines to find you.

The problem with SEO

Now here’s where the conundrum is: You need people to find you so it’s tempting to optimize your keywords to make it optimal for search engines. BUT, you need people to eventually buy so you want your content to make sense to them so that they are participating in your sales funnel. Unfortunately, these are not always congruent goals! Some experts pin optimal keyword density at 4%, which means that you need to have the same keyword appear 4 times in 100 words. That might be fine for search engines, and it might even be okay for some keywords, but a lot of keywords (especially long-tail keywords) start to seem excessive when written at that density. In a 500 word article, a keyword needs to appear 20 times. That’s excessive for any live reader. Your work might be search engine optimized but it is not human reader optimized!

When your reader finds your content annoying or difficult to understand, they will not buy from you. So, you might enjoy a lot of traffic (which accomplishes your first goal) but you won’t see as much sales (your second goal).

There are other techniques that you can use in your search engine marketing in order to reduce keyword density and improve readability while still creating search engine friendly content! That’s what this blog is all about!