Search Engine Optimization

On-Site Geo-Targeting and Local Search Optimization

Ann Smarty

07/23/08

7 Comments

Previously, I have already touched upon tools that help in geo-targeting and compared their effectiveness. All of them are beyond your on-site optimization efforts:

  1. Setting geographic target with Webmaster Tools;
  2. Server location;
  3. A country specific top level domain;
  4. + Backlinks from local websites.

While the above list is a must if you want search engine to get your geo-targeting efforts right, some important on-site optimization should not be missed either (that will both ensure your site better local search rankings and generate local backlinks):

  1. Include your location information on visible to crawlers (even better: prominent and powerful) pages.
    1. Use <address></address> tag to make it even more evident what your business location is.
    2. Consider optimizing some of your page titles (and other important to SEO page elements: URLs and internal anchor text) for your city/state.
    3. Make sure to include (and probably optimize for) your zip code / Post Office Box address.
  2. Make sure to add your local phone number (including area code) to your contact details and home page.
  3. Don’t forget to tailor other geo-specific details to the current geographic version format: pricing in local currency, working hours based on local standards and time zone, dates in the locally understandable format (e.g. YYYY/MM/DD vs Russian DD/MM/YY), etc.
  4. Run country-specific promotions (for local holidays and days off);
  5. Optimize for local spelling (e.g. British English vs American English vs Australian English) to get traffic from local search referrals;
  6. Try your hand at local link bait: cover topics that are specifically interesting to the nation you are targeting (add national facts, humor and proverbs specific to the country).

7 Comments

  • Lawrence says:

    Interesting post…especially about using the HTML tags for your contact address.

    I will give it a try in my efforts and see how it works out.

  • Rob says:

    Nice post Ann.

    I am battling to get one of my clients ranked well on google.co.uk at the moment. Doing well on .com though.

    The problem I have is that my client is not based in the UK, so I can’t use UK contact details such as addresses and phone numbers which makes it tricky. This also means I can’t add them to google local for the UK.

    I am currently working on building up the backlinks from UK sites which could/should do the trick. I am also working on adding other on site optimisation data such as the words UK to the pages copy in the hope that G may take a hint.

    I changed the geo location settings in webmaster tools some weeks back but this hasn’t helped.

    Congratulations on your blog btw. I also look forward to reading your posts.

  • Josh says:

    I would sugest to your client to open a mail box – NOT a PO BOX – at Mail Boxes etc. – that will give him a local business address in UK which you can use for listings in local searches.

  • Rob says:

    Thanks Josh. Great idea. Will look into it.

  • Kristen says:

    Hi Ann, Interesting article! I’m going to go through your suggestions and review/revamp my web site accordingly. I do have a noob geo-targeting question, in your opinion, should I use the geo-targeting in Webmaster tools if my web site is a travel guide/resource site for a particular region (cape cod) and our audience is very broad, locationally speaking? Thank you!

  • Martin says:

    Hi Anne, country specific domains both .co.uk and com.au will overide server location , my forum has a local domain (net.au) and hosted in the US, and is number one , in local search for its target , same with a co.uk I look after, also you can use a country specific directory or sub e.g mydomain.com/uk/ this was suggested by Google engineer and will be recognized by Googlbot

  • Gunn says:

    This’s great article. Thank you.

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