On-Site Geo-Targeting and Local Search Optimization

July 23rd, 2008 by Ann Smarty | 6 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:

Setting geographic target with Webmaster Tools;
Server location;
A country specific top level domain;
+ 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):

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.
Make sure to add your local phone number (including area code) to your contact details and home page.
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.
Run country-specific promotions (for local holidays and days off);
Optimize for local spelling (e.g. British English vs American English vs Australian English) to get traffic from local search referrals;
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).

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Comments

6 responses so far ↓

Lawrence on Jul 23, 2008 at 10:54 am

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 on Jul 23, 2008 at 4:52 pm

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 on Jul 24, 2008 at 11:23 am

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 on Jul 24, 2008 at 11:38 am

Thanks Josh. Great idea. Will look into it.
Kristen on Jul 25, 2008 at 9:24 am

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 on Jul 26, 2008 at 1:57 am

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