Craigslist is not only used for scams and online prostitutes contrary to popular belief.  I’m sure most of us have found a good deal on there or got rid of an old futon at some point or another in our existance!  It can also be used as another tool to not only advertise your services but hint to the search engines what your geographic location is.

Here is an example of an insurance agent in western Washington offering some form of dental insurance:

http://seattle.craigslist.org/oly/fns/1351953261.html

He’s got the right idea by advertising what he’s offering to Craigslist goers as you can see but I do have several ideas that might boost the value he gets out of a post like this one.  First I would create a strong call to action like Get A Free Dental Insurance Quote Today to See How Much You could Save.   This gives the reader of the ad a clear concise path of what he’d like you to do.

The next thing I would do is change the URL. He’s got the right idea of linking to his site but craigslist allows us to post html so we have control over anchor text.  So instead of posting a link that looks like http://www.oakinsure.com he could post something that looks like Western Washington Dental Insurance and tell the search engines exactly what the page he is linking to is about.

Craigslist does add the “nofollow” tag to outbound links so you’re not going to get any link juice but as mentioned this strategy if used well could not only give the search engines another indicator to your geographic location but bottom line you could get some calls to your shop or hits to your website from a potential buyer which is exactly what we’re all about.

Ideas like this one and many more can be found in my business boosting blueprint.

My friend Matthew Hunt from www.smallbusinesscoach.com created this video on how small businesses can go about finding a domain for their company website.  He has some great tips on finding a domain that is aged a little which will greatly help you especially if there is much competition in your area.

However, if you cannot find a domain that is aged I wouldn’t rate it an extremely important factor in local search.  The competition for the local search space is not great at this point in time and with good SEO techniques the age of your domain doesn’t play a big factor.

If your’e interested in getting your small business website to rank when people search for products and services in your community check out my Business Boosting Blueprint for a step by step SEO guide!

One of the best in the local SEO game by the name of David Mihm (along with many other geniuses) put together a list of the most important and most negative factors when trying to rank locally.  You can find the entire report here

I am going to outline some of the things that I think are intersting that I think a lot of businesses either miss or disregard.

1) Your address needs to actually be in the city where you are trying to get results.  This is a problem for some folks as they might be in a small suburb of a bigger city and therefore do not show up when someone in that bigger city searches for your services.  There is always a work around though! While some consider this method slightly shady I do not have a problem with it as long as it’s used within reason.

Go to a mailbox store or a UPS store in the city where you are trying to get rankings and rent a box with them for a year. Probably will cost you about $100.  Use that address to submit to the search engines.  You also want to use that address on your website though as they really need to match if you hope to get good rankings.  I dont see this as a bad or shady option if you actually service the area in the bigger city.  This could be abused though and I do strongly discourage people from doing that. For example, I can work for any customer no matter what their local. I am not going to go register addresses in different cities around the US because I could technically work for them.  Keep this within reason.

2) Your Product / Service Keyword should be in your LBL title! This seems like a dumb thing to say but your main keyword should be in your title.  I myself have even been guilty of leaving this out on occasion because the business name didn’t include their main keyword.  You can usually find a way to work it in without it becoming too spammy though.  Once again, dong go overboard with this and try to stuff in every keyword you want to rank for into your title. It wont take the search engines long to catch this and give you the slap!

3) PO Boxes and 800 Numbers! Search engines actually use your address (go figure) so put a physical address so they know where you’re located.  If you must have your PO Box on your site also include your physical address in the footer of every page and only put your PO Box on the contact us page.  It would also be wise to use paint or some other program to make an image file that has your PO box so the search engines dont even read it.

The same train of thought should be applied to your 800 number.  Yes they’re handy and a good tool to have but they do you no good in the SEO world!

So there are my thoughts on a couple points.  I see people make those mistakes or overlook those things regularly.  I do strongly suggest you read through the entire report he put together if you’re interested in doing your own SEO.  Also check out my business boosting blueprint which will also walk you through step by step how to get results with your site!

Whether you’ve decided to start a new business venture or you’re trying to expand your current marketing efforts online it’s essential that you have a great website!  It’s also very important to realize that just because you have a site and it’s published on the web that doesn’t mean people are going to find it. That like anything else takes a little bit of work!

The 3 Keys To Having A Website That Actually Works For You!

1.  A great design is the first element of a successful site. If your visitors land on your site and are immediately turned off by your color scheme or the lay out of your site you’ve failed.  A clean and crisp design that conveys your sales message and encourages the visitor to take action whether that’s sending an e-mail or picking up the phone is of the utmost importance and unless you’re very experienced in this area you should probably seek help from a professional.

There are many places where you can get a pretty good looking website template that will only require you adding your own unique content but even these sometimes need to be customized a little bit.  Here are a couple places you can look for templates:

• TemplateMonster.com
• FreeWebSiteTemplates.com
• WebSiteTemplates.com

2. Readily available contact information and a strong call to action. Unless you want your site to act as a virtual brochure you need to make sure that your visitors know what you want them to do and provide them the information to do that.

Having your phone number an e-mail address prominently displayed on every page along with a very clear Call Us Now Or E-mail For More Information call to action is great.

You can even go a step further to increase the likelihood of your customer following through on your call to action by bribing them.  An example might be, Call Now To Get A Quote On Refinancing Your Home And Receive a Gift Certificate For Lunch.

3.  The other thing you absolutely must have in order to have a wildly successful website is visitors! The best looking site with incredible conversion rates means nothing if you actually have potential customers visiting it.

Our specialty is taking you from simply having a website to building your “Web Presence.”  We have been extremely successful with getting our clients top positions for search terms your potential customers are actually using.

We’d love the opportunity to talk with you whether you’re just getting started with creating a site or whether you’ve had a site for some time now and are tired of it sitting around and collecting virtual dust.  Give us a call and we’ll find a cost effective way to turn your website into a client generating tool!

Call Jason 208-610-0984 or shoot us an e-mail info@localsearchsimplified.com

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