Local SEO Series - Part 1 of 3

Over the past 10 years, the World Wide Web has helped build a global marketplace. Now with little cost and time, a small business can create a web site that can reach new customers across the street or across the ocean. Compared to other advertising and marketing methods, you can’t beat the Internet as a cost-effective marketing tool to grow your customer base.

Although the Web site strategy of most businesses is focused on reaching distant customers with products that are easy to ship, this is usually not the goal of most retail bakeries. Most companies focus on attracting customers from the immediate geographic area. By refining or optimizing the elements of your company’s Web site, you’ll capture the attention of that local market and increase sales volume.

According to research by The Kelsey Group and Constat, Inc., 80 percent of U.S. small-to- medium size businesses reported that 75 percent of their buying and/or selling of products and services occurs within a 50-mile radius. Reaching customers within that 50-mile radius can easily be achieved with a web site optimized for local visitors.

A recent survey by comScore reported that the local search is growing at a 20 percent increase year over year. Of the 3,000 survey participants, 60 percent used the Internet as their first choice for locating goods and services in their area. Half of these online users used a major search engine such as Google.com or MSN.com and the other half used a mixture of Internet Yellow Pages and local search sites such as Citysearch.com or Local.com. When they questioned the survey participants about their specific behaviors using the Internet to find local businesses, they discovered that 50 percent of the searchers only contacted one business listed in the search result, and 30 percent contacted between two and five businesses.

Based on this survey, if your web site doesn’t show up in the first page of these search engine results for terms specific to your niche followed by the name of your town, chances are they may take their business elsewhere. Getting your site to appear higher in search engine results is both an art and a science. It involves both on page optimization and off page optimization.

Local SEO Series:
Part 1 of 3: Local Search Engine Optimization - Introduction
Part 2 of 3: Local Search Engine Optimization - On Page Techniques
Part 3 of 3: Local Search Engine Optimization - Off Page Techniques