SEO Blog

The search engines’ results pages have gradually seen local elements gaining additional focus. You’ll find maps with businesses in your vicinity at the top of Google even for generic searches. As far as services are concerned, search engines believe that local is better.

They’re not wrong either. If I’m looking for a bakery, I don’t want to have results coming back from other counties or countries either. The likelihood is that you will want to find one within your vicinity so you can easily visit it or contact them regarding an order.
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It’s not always easy getting started promoting a website. Whatever your expertise in the field of Search Engine Optimisation, we all need a push in the right direction sometimes. Here are five quick tips for getting your website optimised in no time at all.

Produce Content for All Pages

You should already have your architecture in place. So when your pages are complete it is vital that they contain text. Depending on how many resources you have available, this content can be as long or as short as you require.
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You might have notice that I’ve already rather unsubtly provided an example of how you can better improve your site’s strength in your immediate locality. There are examples of this all over the Internet, most of which are a little more subtle and better phrased than the title of this post. A website doesn’t need to just be recognised in its field of expertise, it has to be visible in its geographical location.

By including SEO Hampshire within the title of this blog post, it is more likely to get indexed for that phrase in search engines. That could in turn bring in people who are interested in finding out more about SEO services in Hampshire.

When optimising any website, the two key components that will add the most strength are content and links. Within the realms of content, one of the most important aspects is the title. This is the phrase that the search engine will pick up on and ordinarily assign most weight to. A page should only have one H1 heading, as this ought to be used to only get across the main message of that page - including keywords of course. Any other headings should only be given a H2 tag or lower, so as not to confuse search engines and ruin the strength of the page.
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It might sound painfully simple, but signing up for Google Maps (as well as the Bing and Yahoo equivalents) can be hugely beneficial for your site. Not only will you gain a valuable link back to your site, but you can also ensure that you appear at the top of the SERPs for related searches in your surrounding area.

Local search is a very large part of SEO, particularly now with the mobilisation of the Internet. People aren’t just searching for products and services from sites all over the world these days, they want something local, they want a site that they can visit in person. Google Maps will play a huge part in ensuring that you are able to meet these requirements.
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It’s going to be a big year for the mobile Internet. Whilst it has been growing in momentum over the past decade, now it appears that the technology, range, speed and accessibility have combined to make for a revolution.

For anybody who has used the Internet on a mobile device, you will know that it is quite different. Due to the smaller screen and certain loading limitations (for example many are still unable to open JavaScript) websites don’t appear the same, if in fact they appear at all.
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Local search has always been an important subsidiary of SEO. It fits in neatly with a whole raft of similarly important techniques, including link building as one quick example. However, in 2010 it could well come to the fore as a procedure that is not only recommended, but absolutely essential.

The reason why we are likely to become far more dependent on our rankings within the immediate vicinity of physical premises is quite simple; mobile internet. Whilst we might do the majority of our research on the larger screens of a PC or laptop, increasingly consumers are turning to their mobiles to help locate businesses, objects and goods within their surrounding catchment.
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It seems slightly ridiculous to say it, but the vast majorities of stores and businesses have a certain catchment area. Yes, clients may also come from afar, but their core customer base is located within a certain proximity of their office, or at least one of their offices.

Local search targets this key demographic. Internet users searching for services within a certain county or city are looking for something specifically, something that you could ultimately help them with.
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Whilst we all want to get as many people viewing our site as possible, occasionally a little added refinement is necessary. If you’ve got a store in Leeds but are getting the bulk of your traffic from oversees, the likelihood of gaining any meaningful custom through your website is significantly reduced.

Local search is an optimisation technique that has been developed to give a geographical focus to a site. Whilst search engines are incredibly intelligent, they still need to be given an indication of your location if they are to start ranking you for searches in that area.
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Local search is a division of SEO that is perhaps more underused than most. As its title suggests, local search simply refers to the optimisation of a site for terms related to its geographical location. So why is this helpful?

Well, how many times have you performed a search for a business or product that has included a location? Chances are that you’ve used a search engine at some point to do this; local search is a way of ensuring that people find you first when they do this.
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