Provided below are just a few strategies I use which I’ve found very effective in building search engine rank for increased local business exposure.
Relevant Blog Link Placement
I’ll research through the web to find relevant blogs and then take the necessary steps to market your website’s link through a published article or relevant existing page or post. This is not to be confused with comment posting. These will be keyword associated links within the article portion of the published blog post.
Article Directories
I generally will write relevant articles and submit them on some of the better and higher traffic article directories online. This provides you with both link building and also some direct traffic as most of the time these article sites rank well on search engines. (Not as powerful as they once were due to algorithm updates 10/28/11)
Press Releases
I also find it helpful to develop a well written press release to present your website, products or service. News sites have authority and rank well on search engines plus your website benefits from the link(s) published within the release.
Directory Placement
With directories its important to research and find directories relevant to your industry. Get you site placed in a relevant directory with a link to your website. This is one of the oldest methods of building links and can still be beneficial for your local website marketing.
Relevant Homepage Links
In order to find the best candidates for home page links I’ll take a look at relevancy, website age, traffic and current placement on search engines. Homepage links are generally harder and more expensive to obtain and maintain. Furthermore, they may only stay active with a monthly, quarterly or annual investment.
PPC Marketing and Tracking
With PPC marketing its important to have a developed solution to track both clicks and sales conversions. You need to be able to look at all campaigns after a few months and know exactly which ones to keep and which ones to discard. With a website that obtains customers through a form – this is pretty easy to do. For local companies expecting it’s a little more involved since your customers generally will call instead of filling out a form. Local companies may be able to track conversions through the use of a call forwarding service. Most forwarding services will provide a report of calls and extensions used. Therefore you can assign extensions to campaigns you run.
