A recent study done by David Mihm among 27 prominent bloggers and practitioners of local search engine marketing showed the following factors that positively affect local search rankings in Google and Yahoo, beginning with the most helpful:

1. Having the local business listing in the city where the searcher is in
2. Having citations from the major data providers
3. Being associated with the proper categories in local business listings
4. Having claimed the local business listing
5. Having the product or service keywords and key phrases in the local business listing title
6. Having off-page criteria such as directory listings
7. Having a high volume of customer reviews
8. Having high quality customer reviews
9. Having strong on-page website criteria, such as domain strength and landing pages strength
10. Having the full business address on the contact page
11. Being near the centroid, meaning “downtown”, as defined by a local search engine
12. Having high quality inbound links
13. Having citations from hyperlocal and web crawls
14. Having the product or service keywords and key phrases in the local business listing description
15. Having location keywords and key phrases in inbound anchor text
16. Having customer reviews right at the search engines
17. Having location keywords and key phrases in the local business listing title
18. Having the product or service keywords and key phrases in inbound anchor text
19. Having the name of the city and state in the title tags
20. Having customer reviews in third party websites
21. Having location keywords and key phrases in the local business listing description
22. Having a high quantity of inbound links
23. Having the name of the city and state in the contact page title tags
24. Having the product or service keywords and key phrases in the URL of the website
25. Having the product or service keywords and key phrases in the local business listing custom fields
26. Being associated with marginal categories in the local business listings
27. Having location keywords and key phrases in the URL of the website
28. Having a local area code in the phone number listed in the local business listing
29. Being associated with local business listing videos
30. Having a local phone number on the contact page
31. Having user generated content such as customized Google My Maps
32. Having a homepage with a high pagerank
33. Being associated with local business listing photos
34. Having created a keyhole markup language (KML) file
35. Having positive ratings from customers
36. Having location keywords and key phrases in the local business listing custom fields
37. Having the business address in hCard Mircroformat on the company website
38. Having a high page rank for the landing page of the local business listing
39. The age of the local business listing, with older listings ranking higher
40. Including coupons in local business listings
41. Paticipating in local pay per click campaigns

On the other hand, these are the factors that negatively affect local search engine ranking in Google and Yahoo, starting with the most harmful:

1. Having multiple local business listings with the same business address
2. Having multiple local business listings with the same telephone number
3. Having no physical business address and using only a post office box
4. Having multiple local business listings with the same business name
5. Having only the Internet 800 Directory number on the contact page
6. Having negative ratings from customers
7. Having multiple business addresses on the contact page
8. Using the Internet 800 Directory number in local business listing

Make sure to use this checklist in evaluating your own local business listing.

For any business, local searches are definitely more valuable. It has been proven that people who do local searches online are closer to making a decision on buying certain products or services. They are seeking the final factors that will make them decide one way or another. When you lead these searchers to your website, you have that very valuable opportunity to make them decide on choosing your products or services. Since local searches mean that the searcher is in your vicinity, immediate sales are very probable. So are searches converting to web visits, phone calls or physical walk in visits to your store or office.

According to statistics, 74% of internet users do local searches. In fact, of all searches done online, 35% are local. Of all those local searches, 82% are followed by phone calls or physical visits to stores and actual purchase. Among Americans, a high 66% use local search to find local businesses. It is also interesting to note that people spend 80% of their budgets within 50 miles of their homes. Shouldn’t you be taking advantage of this trend as soon as possible?

It is evident that having your website listed in local searches has become a very important requirement for business. Even if other innovations crop up, as they surely will, local internet searches are here to stay and will remain a very influential factor in marketing.

It is free to have your business listed in many local listings like Google Maps. Make sure you claim your listing and that the information associated with your listing is complete and accurate. If you fail to do this, many search engines still list you using third party information that they get elsewhere online. The danger is that the information may be inaccurate and misleading. Even worse, someone else may intentionally sabotage your listing.

Remember that your business address should be listed both in your local business listing and your website. They should be identical. This is critical and will facilitate your high ranking.

Other business listings require a fee for an upgrade, giving you the ability to gain more control over your listing. The cost is often worth it, especially since you need every advantage you can get over your competitors.

Many business listings include client reviews. Make sure your products and services are of optimum quality in order to garner positive reviews. Encourage your satisfied clients to show their appreciation and support by posting positive reviews. You should also monitor these reviews for any negative comments. You have to immediately check their validity so that you can respond accordingly.

Having your business listed is not all there is to it, though. Just being listed is useless if your business does not appear on the first page of local searches, preferably high up there if not on the first place. Achieving that goal is not easy, though. You will be able to achieve it sooner with the help of search engine marketing experts.

Investing in the services of experts in search engine optimization and search engine marketing may be the best thing you can do for your business. Do it to maximize your use of local business listings for greater sales. It can more than double your income.

How do you know whom to hire? One of the best ways is to go by the results they show. Find who among your competitors rank highest in local business searches. Then check the service they use. Business Local Listings, for example, is indicated in all the listings of its clients. And you will find these clients at the top of their respective local niches.

Your search engine marketing efforts are geared toward bringing more visitors to your website. Once there, it is the job of your website to convert such visits into sales. How can your website do this if it does not have an optimized design? By optimized, we mean a design that is user-friendly and leads the user to purchase your products or services.

A website offers information to the visitor using a combination of graphics, text and, in some cases, video and audio. It can be a one-page website or a collection of web pages linked to each other to form a whole.

Like all other projects, web design needs careful planning for its design layout and contents. This will also be the basis for easier website expansion later.

It is very important that the main objective of the website be identified clearly in the planning stage. Who is the target audience of the website and what action do you want that audience to do? Only when these are clearly defined will you be able to plan the design of the website effectively.

Of course, anyone from around the world can view your website. You also have to make sure, therefore, that your website appeals to a wide audience even while it is especially targeted to your preferred primary audience.

Your business website’s look should reflect the image you want to project for your company. It should contain the company’s profile and products and services. Upon arriving at your website, your visitors should immediately see what you can do for them and why you are their best choice over your competitors.

Your website should have rich content, an attractive visual design and an intuitive interface. Your content should be original and informative to your visitors. It is important that this content is written with search engine optimization in mind, with all the appropriate keywords and key phrases in place.

Most websites are made up of several web pages. Each web page should have its own objectives. The web pages should be titled based on your keywords and key phrases.

From the home page and all other pages of the website, the visitor must be able to see what other pages are available and what links to click to get there. Graphic icons can be used with text to aid navigation and interaction. Make sure, though, that the graphics do not take too long to load. Stick with small file sizes.

Do not make your visitor rely on the “back” and “forward” buttons of the web browser. Your own menu should be on every web page, with links to all other web pages. These links should change to a distinctly different color once a link has been visited so that the visitor knows where he has already been and where he has not yet visited.

A very useful tool in planning the website is the storyboard. The storyboard is the counterpart of an outline for the website. It contains the general objective of the website and its primary target audience. It also includes all the individual web pages and their respective objectives. All the minor objectives should be working in support of the general objective of the entire website. With the storyboard, everything is placed in their proper places. You avoid having a confusing website. You also avoid duplicate content as well as missing out on some important details. At a glance, you immediately see what you have or do not have. This can also make your site mapping much easier. It saves you much time and effort.

With proper planning and preparation, you are on your way to the best website design to support your search engine marketing campaign.

So I’ve been struggling with exactly how to use Facebook as a business tool instead of as a way to look at pictures of my friends’ kids or find people I knew in high school. One of the problems inherent in Facebook is that all your worlds start to merge. Personal and business, past and present, close friends and just acquaintances. Do you really want your business associates to see pictures of you at the beach? Do you really want your family and friends to get your business pitches?

As an internet marketer I’ve bit the bullet and accepted that my networking contacts are going to be able to find me and see pictures of me swing dancing or out with my friends. That’s fine, we live in an age where we can find out exactly what our neighbors paid for their house and if they’ve ever been arrested or not. However, you can still use Facebook to promote your business and keep some semblance of anonymity. Promote your business with a Facebook Fan Page.

You get most of the functionality of a normal Facebook page, but geared for business. If you’re familiar with Facebook, you’ll adapt to fan pages quickly. The main difference is that you get fans instead of friends and you put in business information instead of personal info. You get:

• Status Updates
• Wall Posts
• Links
• Pictures and video
• Notes
• Events

In addition you can:

• Get customer reviews
• Promote other pages
• Run ads on Facebook to promote your page
• Assign multiple people to manage your page

Even better, you can automatically update your page from your blog (as you’ll see when I publish this). Lastly, the analytics that Facebook offers to Fan Page managers is outstanding. You get reports on fans and what kind of interactions they’re performing with your page and whether your postings are effective or not. There’s some really powerful stuff on here and I’m just delving into it myself.

If you’ve been wanting to get your business on Facebook, but you didn’t want to get on yourself, this is the way to go. Become a fan of my page and I’ll be happy to help you out myself.

Business Local Listings

Promote Your Page Too

Using the right keywords and key phrases is crucial to the success of your search engine optimization campaign. It would be useless to turn up on the first page of search engine results pages (SERPs) for the wrong keywords and key phrases since these do not target your client base. Even if you get a lot of hits and visits, these will not convert into the sales you need.

Keyword research is, therefore, the first priority for any search engine marketing campaign, whether you intend to use search engine optimization, pay per click (PPC) methods, blogging, article distribution or classified advertising. Keyword research involves finding the exact words and combinations of words that people use when searching your niche in the search engines.

Of course, you must first identify your niche properly. If you are a sales company, do not just choose sales. What exactly are you selling? You need keywords that will be used by people looking for the products or services you are selling. These are the people you need to lead to your website.

When thinking of keywords and key phrases, do not just use the ones in your company name or professional jargon used by experts within your field. Consider how lay people think instead. If they need your product or service, how would they key in a search online? Perhaps you could consult your friends and relatives about this. Better yet, consult your existing customers, too.

This is also why key phrases and not just keywords are used in search engine optimization. People usually search for products and services using not just a single word. You, therefore, need to find what words your potential customers will most likely put together while searching.

Once you have identified your niche and have an initial list of keywords, you can use a free or paid keyword research tool to do your keyword research. It will suggest a long list of keywords and key phrases related to your niche. As you choose more specific keywords and key phrases, even more variations of these are shown to you. Alongside the keywords and key phrases, you will also be shown the popularity of each one through the number of searches they get, as well as their conversion rates and competition.

List down all the keywords and key phrases that are relevant to your niche. Evaluate their popularity in searches against the competition you have with others using the same keywords and key phrases. This is important to note because it may be easier to get to the top with keywords and key phrases with less competition and this may be more effective for you if their searches are enough to cover your target anyway.

Compile a set of keywords and key phrases to be used in your search engine marketing campaign. Do not have less than three. Ten would be just right. You may have more but just make sure your list is manageable. So as not to lose focus, prioritize your keywords and key phrases. If you have three to five primary keywords for example, you can have the same number of secondary and the same number of tertiary keywords. These secondary and tertiary keywords will be useful when writing the content of your website, your blog articles and your articles for distribution. They will enrich your content without “keyword stuffing.” Remember, excessive repetition of your main keywords and key phrases will result in penalty instead of good standing in search engines.

Whether you do your search engine optimization efforts and search engine marketing yourself, or assign this task to experts, you still need to be actively involved in identifying your keywords and key phrases. After all, you know your business and your target market best.