Virtual Coach » Local SEO blog SERPs can power up local businesses

Local SEO blog SERPs can power up local businesses

March 26, 2009 Barbara No comments

Local SEO Do you run a small local business?

If so, are you aware that you can use free blogs to increase targeted traffic to your site…and that local SEO is easy beyond belief to implement?

It’s quite true, actually….I’ve been taking advantage of this technique now for years.

Let’s say, for example, that you live in Walnut Creek, California, and you run a beauty salon (or a car repair shop or a comic book store or a dog training kennel or a moose-wrangling outfit or…. you get the idea).

And…let’s say that your URL is www.BeyondSkinDeep.com (no, that is not an actual URL that I use – this is just for illustration).

Well! I can SEOize my main URL to my heart’s content and really get it targeted not only to Walnut Creek, but local nearby towns as well.

I find out those by searching for:

walnut creek california towns

and discovering listings like:

Walnut Creek, CA –     * Lafayette
    * Alamo
    * Concord
    * Pleasant Hill
    * Moraga
    * Diablo
    * Orinda
    * Clayton
    * Canyon
    * Martinez
    * Danville
    * Pittsburg
    * Castro Valley
    * Berkeley
    * Kensington
    * Piedmont
    * Oakland
    * Port Costa
    * Albany
    * Benicia
    * San Leandro
    * Emeryville
    * El Cerrito
    * Hercules
    * Crockett

Once I know my towns, I can create a page for each town that show how to arrive to my business FROM said town…and have that indexed in search engines as well.

But the buck doesn’t stop there!

Who said ALL my SEO HAS to originate from my official business site?

I can also set up a free blog on another domain (ie, something like DotEasy which is 100% free hosting) and then write articles about my business niche…including a direct link to my official business site.

End result?

Because blogs get indexed relatively quickly, and it’s beyond simple to fine-tune your blogs so that your posts show up ‘way ahead of the thundering herd, you’ve effectively increased your targeted business’ visibility (often ahead of other competitors).

I’ve done this myself many many times. Whenever I want to promote a business or a person or an event etc., I’ll write a blog post about it over at my flagship site, BarbaraLing.com . And once that page has been indexed, chances are….it will trounce the majority of the competition for high SERPs.

Case in point (although this is not a local example; I’m holding that off for future posts)! It’s time for people to submit their entry for the Animal Planet Hero of the Year.

I just wrote about it earlier this year over at:

2009 Animal Planet Hero of the Year!

Check out the SERPs for

2009 Animal Planet Hero of the Year

Right now, it’s #9 out of around 225,000 results.

and I didn’t even begin to SEO that particular post for high visibilty yet….

Neat, huh?

Remember, you AREN’T limited ONLY to your site for SEO purposes or ONLY to your blog for SEO purposes or ONLY to your whatever for SEO purposes…you can mix and match your various web properties across the Internet to help you increase your targeted visibility wherever possible.

It’s up to you to make it happen.

Enjoy,

Barbara Ling

ps – speaking about SEO, have you seen:

Square D 9065-SEO-6B2 Thermal Overload Relay SZ 6-8 new