Orange County SEO Tip: Google Maps and Yahoo Local Directory Listings are Great!

Since Google's been showing first page rankings for local listing within their natural listings lately, it seems like a good idea to be listed in the local search engines as part of the Orange County SEO process. They're now more visible than ever and are not going away. The search engines don't say (nor should they) how to get top local listings, and here are some basic steps and ideas to benefit from Google Maps and Yahoo Local listings.

1) First, make sure to have a free Gmail and Yahoo email account.

2) From there, sign in to Google's Local Business Center and Yahoo's Add a Business page.

3) Provide accurate information regarding products or services provided, payment methods, hours of operation, and more (there are easy field forms for most of these).

4) They both allow you to upload and display business photos. Hint - sometimes just a simple business logo does wonders.

5) They both allow you to describe your business in up to "x" characters. Keyword stuffing = bad and silly looking. Accurate information = good and builds trust.

6) They both allow user reviews for your business. Embrace it and encourage it! This can create an online version of word-of-mouth marketing. Plus, results that display trusted reviews often appear toward the top of local search results, which certainly makes sense.

7) With that said, don't create fake user reviews. No matter how hard you try to make it look like someone else wrote it, users are smart and will easily sniff it out and not buy from you.

07:57 - 2008-Jan-25