Personalized search results have always been a puzzle to the SEO experts. This factor which none but Google has control; has left many internet marketers clueless on choosing the right keywords for getting local visitors to the website. For example, let’s consider the case where we are promoting a “home loan calculator” website which serving Singapore audience. I have seen SEO experts add the location tag to the target keyword. For instance, let the target audience be Singapore. You are offering a Singapore home loan calculator website. Your choice of keywords would be “Singapore home loan calculator”, “Home loan calculator Singapore” etc. The keywords would carry the Country name and you believe that it gets maximum local coverage. If so, look at the below statistics from Google adwords tool. The generic keyword “home loan calculator” has 5 times more local searches than the keywords than the ones attached with the Country
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It is obvious that someone already in Singapore is not going to search as “Singapore home loan calculator”. They would just Google “home loan calculator” and thanks to Google local specific personalized results, they would be presented with home loan calculator websites from Singapore. In the comparison below, you would find entirely different bunch of search results appearing for the same keyword “Home loan calculator”. The search results vary entirely between India and Singapore
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So the key to success in local SEO is to make Google bots identify the location of your target audience and display your website in the search results even for the generic keywords. This can be achieved easily with a simple setting at Google Webmaster tools. This is sensibly called “Geotargeting”. There is an option within webmaster tools under site configuration > settings where you can specific the geographic location of your target audience. Once you set the location, your website would appear in search results even for generic keywords when someone searches from the target country. Your website would also appear if someone outside the target country searches with the keyword tagged with the country
Simply said, in the case of “Singapore home loan calculator” your website would appear if:
- Someone searches for “Home loan calculator” from Singapore
- Someone searches for “Singapore home loan calculator” from the rest of the world.
If you have local target audience and have not used this setting yet, visit webmaster tools today and make the change. By setting the location in webmaster tools, you can let Google know that you are targeting a local audience. Now to dominate the local search results you can make use of regular SEO services such as local business listing.
If you want a powerful and profitable business online, professional SEO service are a must. Search Engine Optimization processes are quite a complicated task and asks for a thorough understanding of the different strategies which is not possible for a layman. Here are a few pointers to explain whom do you require to call for the professional SEO services.
Acquainted with SE algorithms:
The major search engines like Yahoo, Bing, and Google etc. have their own formula or algorithms to rank the websites. Now, if you are planning for a successful business over the internet, it’s mandatory that you attain a top ranking there since as per the studies, search engines are highly used by the prospective customers all over the globe while they are looking for any information or service. The visitors are generally impatient and would hardly go the 2nd page of search results while searching for the site and have their work done from the top rankers only. Thus naturally you have to get a top ranking in search engine as per the SE algorithms to get maximum traffic pull. But a layman is never aware of the proper SE algorithms while the professional SEO company technicians are an expert in that.
Take up the entire Burden:
A quality SEO service includes a number of tasks like which are overwhelming for a single individual even he has the knowledge of everything. But if you are going for a credible professional servicing, they would take the entire burden of your site SEO and leave you tension free so that you allot your attention on the other necessities. The SEO companies come with a group of SEO experts who will together take care of the promotional part. They would start with a thorough market analysis to locate your site’s actual SEO requirements which is followed by proper low competitive keyword identification, customized content writing, relevant link building and all the other services distributed among the various technicians
While we were thinking, Google plus would be forgotten very soon as the facebook timeline seems to have worked great, this has been a week of Google plus enquiries. We have got several inquiries regarding our Google plus promotion service and there was this interesting question: “I keep on posting updates to the stream but I haven’t got even a single person +1 the page and join the circles. So how does your (SubmitINme’s) Google plus service going to help me?” Our Google plus service does the same thing. We research, write and post interesting updates to the page stream. So how is this going to help the client? Read on..
Just posting the updates and nothing else is not going to get you anywhere
We like to be open with our clients. Just posting interesting updates to the Google plus stream will not get a flow if fans to the page. In fact it is just akin to winking at a girl in dark. You have to implement strategies where your Google plus page gets noticed by the public. There are several ways to do it.
SEO Mashup
Social media marketing can help a lot in SEO and vice versa. Include links to your Google plus page in all your SEO campaigns through meaningful anchor texts. For example, if you are doing article marketing, including a link back to your Google plus page from the resource box. Social bookmark your Google plus business page so that it would be found in search results. Basically, include the Google plus business page url in all your SEO campaigns.
Have authority in facebook and twitter?
If your business has good authority in facebook or twitter, share information about your Google + business page in them. This would direct the existing fans to the Google plus page as well.
Include the Google plus page url in your newsletters, email campaigns, brochures, catalogues etc.
How does our service (stream posts) help then?
All the above mentioned strategies are to bring people (traffic) to your Google plus business page. It is a freewill of the visitor whether to +1 your page or not. This is where the interesting, well research wall posts come into play. No one wants to join a blank or not updated Google plus page. If the Google plus page is active you can convert all the traffic into loyal fans. This is how our service helps as well.
SEO services are the most essential when you are looking for the ideal online promotion. No wonder, with the popularity of web commerce the SEO companies too are on a rise. It’s not difficult to find a SEO company but the catch is to locate the most cost effective search engine optimization service provider for you. Here are the tips.
SEO packages:
The SEO Company you choose should come up with a wide platter of packages for its customers. Actually SEO consists of a wide range of optimization services which might not be needed for every type or size of business. It might be that you have a small scale enterprise and at this point of time you solely wish to focus on the basic optimization needs and thus paying for all the other forms would be irrelevant and costly.
Background Check:
It’s a vital point to locate the most cost-effective SEO service since many of the SEO agencies with affordable pricing might feature a compromise in the quality. So, you have to check for the company’s reputation in the market. Every reasonable SEO service provider has its membership in Linkedin with their staff members to judge the company’s worth. There would be unbiased customer remarks on the firm to help you get a neutral understanding. If most of the remarks are negative, shop around for another agency
Integrated advanced SEO services & friendly experts
A cost effective SEO agency must be equipped with all forms of SEO servicing including the most updated strategies. The integrated and advanced services are needed especially when you are a major corporation and always looking to stay a step ahead of your competitors. Besides, the company must also come with a strong team of friendly SEO professionals who are ready to advice you on any necessary SEO consultancy 24×7.
Like everyone else, once I thought – Why is the world so obsessed with the iPad 2. I am never going to get one and waste my money. After a few months of the launch, reading the techs, well, I thought “iPad 2 looks like a good tool for entertainment”, but who wants to spend $$$ just for entertainment. Somehow I got an iPad 2 just 2 months back and it has become my ultimate companion at work. Did I mention I work for a professional SEO company? Just Kidding! Alright, back to the point, apart from checking and responding to the client emails, I use these 3 SEO tools regularly on my iPad. Thanks to searchenginewatch pointing out these “must have” SEO apps for any internet marketing professional
1. Google Analytics in iPad
I don’t have to explain the importance of Google analytics for any SEO professional. While you can access analytics using the safari browser of iPad, they have an official Google Analytics app on store. This is specially design for the iPad and so, navigating through the reports is a breeze. It is very much interactive than the regular web version.
Download it
There is an advanced version of this in HD http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/analytics-hd/id364894285?mt=8 and it costs $6 which is really worth it
2. The Website SEO Analyser By KOOZAI LTD
This is one SEO application which I love the most. However, I use Google analytics the most of my day and hence ranked it #1. The analyzer is a very good reporting tool. Just key in your website address and you would get a detailed SEO report on your website. This tool comes in handy to make SEO advices for the clients when I am on the move
Download it
3. WordPress for live blogging
Real-time live blogging is a great way to spread the news almost instantly. We had posted real-time blogs of SEO seminars and events earlier. These posts were done on our official blog using the WordPress application for iPad . While at the summit, we had seen many of them struggling with their laptops to post live blogs and many of them where confined to facebook and twitter posts. While we did that all with cool applications for iPad.
Download it
These are the top 3 applications I use for my SEO work. Feel free to share the apps that you use at your work in the comments.
Build a local business website + participate in social media + Encourage customers to write reviews online
When it comes to online local business promotion, creating a website has become indispensable because of the fierce competition. The first step towards online local business promotion that everyone does is to list the business in local listing sites similar to Google Local. In fact these sites are crowded with hundreds of listings for particular areas. While these local business listings are very much vital for local business promotion online, to overcome the fierce competition, these local listings need to be enhanced with several stuff such as a dedicated website and social media profiles. Here is how an effective local business promotion should be done:
1. Build a local business website: Create a very simple website with very minimal number of pages. Remember that yours is not an eCommerce that regularly needs to be updated with new products. The simple you build your website, the simple the maintenance would be. I would suggest have just three pages – A home page with an overview of the business, a page that describes what you offer and a contact page with full details along with a Google map listing embed. Just make sure you do a keyword research before writing the content for the pages. Use the keywords in the META titles and descriptions wisely.
2. Mark your presence in popular social networks: Don’t just get into all the social networks, but just choose the ones that best suit your niche. Remember that active participation in Facebook and Twitter is sufficient to promote your local business in social media
3. Local listings with website url and social media: Now it’s time to create the local business listings in sites such as Google Local and Bing local. Be sure to include your website url and the social media profiles in the listing.
How the promotion works:
As you know, there is not specific strategy to promote a local business listing in Google local or Bing local. However, Google local and similar sites pull data about a business from the social networks and review sites. In fact the local sites offer priority to businesses that have a well optimized website. To make Google local and other local sites grab information about your business, all you have to do is to use same, complete contact information across your website, social media sites and review sites. Remember that in order for the “local search engine” bots to identify your business presence in the social media, review media and general web the address and contact information across all these spots should match. Once the bots have identified your businesses’ presence, any activity done in these social networks and review sites would build ranking to the local listing. You should also encourage your customers to write reviews online which would be grabbed by the local search bots as a ranking factor too.
