SEO Blog - SidePixel

We’ve been publishing some articles that are related to SEO and how to make your online marketing campaign since 1, December 2012 hope some of you enjoyed it and we are promising Will be publishing more interesting articles to create a strong online percents and coupe of additional topic about web development and so on.

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List your business in local directories categorized as:

‘Local search directories’: These are national directories e.g., Superpages, Yelp,InsiderPages, AngiesList etc.

‘Geo-Local directories’: Directories that are based on your geographic location.

‘Local blogs’: Request for inclusion of your local business in localized blogs or provide a guest blog post on one of these blog sites. You could also invite local/relevant bloggers to try your services for free and then recommend you in their blogs as a return favor.

‘Niche-specific local directories’: Find directories in your niche that are specific to your location, such as a wedding site, a builders directory, a chamber of commerce business listing or a tourism site.

Specialty business directories: Examples include - Christian Yellow Pages,Jewish Directory, Black business directory, Hispanic directory, Green Business Directory and Pet Directory.

Content is king! It is no secret that writing valuable content is a good way to rank high and attract visitors from search engines. The combination of unique and valuable content provides an enriched user experience which search engines appreciate.

You can do this by creating help pages, resource pages or a blog that talks about:

Your target audience. Writing for a niche will be more successful than writing for the wider public.

Useful tips (example: 6 Best Practices for…, 5 Best Ways to…, 12 Providers of…).

A glossary of terms for your industry.

Summaries: Gather information, analyze and summarize what others have written about your industry.

Reviews about products and providers in your industry.

Upcoming fairs and industry events.

Analysis of the news in your industry.

Case studies.

When you write content, use good keywords (the most frequently searched keywords) and ensure that your title contains that keyword, or keyword chain, in a manner that looks natural and appealing.

News content is highly rated in search engine results due to the freshness update. Recent updates and hot topics have begun trending on the web in both search and social media.

According to the freshness guidelines, the content of a post matters as much as the frequency. Posting news on a regular basis brings in a good amount of traffic to your site and thus helps with brand building.

The news, however, must not just be a rephrased/scraped version of an existing story. Come up with something unique and creative and then add your opinions and comments, encouraging your readers to leave a comment themselves.

Link your news section to your Google+ profile and build authorship around a single profile.

Add an option for your readers to subscribe to your news.

Add Facebook, Google+, Twitter, LinkedIn and Pinterest buttons on your news page.

Treat your homepage as the key to conveying the quality of your site. Communicate the purpose and value of your website on the homepage: who you are, what you provide and why you’re special.

Be selective about what is placed on the homepage, making sure the options and links presented there are the most important ones on the site. Keep in mind, however, that users should not be required to click down to the second or third level to discover the full breadth of options on a website.

Case studies demonstrate the credibility of a particular product, service or concept. They create expert authority for you in your niche and make a seemingly unachievable task possible.

Post case studies on your blog or in the news section of your website.

You can add your business to Google Maps. Visit Google Maps and click Put your business on Google Maps.

You must have a Google Places account for this. Using your Local Business Center Dashboard, you can control the content of your Google local business listings that appear on Google search or Google Maps search.

Use the Google map marker to add a location on the map.

Prepare the information to be included on your business' map listing, such as your address, contact info, business category, payment options, operating hours, etc.

The Google Maps search returns all of the business details (including photos and latest reviews) offered in the Google+ Local pages of your business, example: hotels Seattle.

Take advantage of conventions.

Use an appropriate page layout to eliminate the need for users to scroll horizontally.

Use your design and layout to group related items together.

Divide the page into clearly defined areas, this allows users to quickly decide which areas of the page to focus on.

Graphics, icons and symbols should be easy to understand.

Provide navigational options for every single page.

Place the organization's logo on the top of every page and link it to the homepage.

Create pages that are not considered cluttered by users.

Write text to the point, limiting the amount of unnecessary details.

Emphasize the page elements that need the most attention.

Be clear about what task the user is trying to accomplish and don't overwhelm them with secondary items like promotions.

Put important, clickable items in the same locations, and closer to the top of the page.

Establish a high-to-low level of importance for your information and infuse this approach throughout each page of your website.

Make the top few high-priority features particularly prominent and easy to access.

If you can leave out low-priority features completely, do so.

Whether or not you have a brick and mortar store, it is vital to ensure that your website ranks well in local search results. What does this mean?

Prepare your website for Local SEO:

Add your city's name in your website titles, descriptions and home page content. Example: "Laundry service in Atlanta, GA"

Use Geo Microformats

Submit your company's listing to some top directories:

Yelp

Insider Pages

Citysquares.com

MojoPages.com

outside.in

getfave.com

more....

If you are not based in the USA, you should find out what the important local directories are for your country/city.

Submit your company's listing to the online Yellow Pages:

SuperPages.com

Whitepages

InfoSpace

Switchboard.com

Submit your site to Local Search Engines:

Google Places

Yahoo! Local Merchant

Ask! City Business Listing

Bing Local Listings

Submit your company to data providers:

The following are a few tips to get more people signing up for your mailing list:

Place your email newsletter sign-up form on your home page.

Post free whitepapers or helpful articles on your site and ask your visitor to sign up to get access.

Offer free giveaways to one lucky subscriber.

Link to your sign-up form on every page of your website.

Add an “opt-in for our newsletter” check box on your E-Commerce checkout page.

In your “Contact Us” form on your website, add a check box to “sign up for our newsletter”.

Place a link to your email sign-up form in your email signature.

Add the link to your sign-up form to all of the invoices your company sends.

Check your Google Analytics to find out which screen resolutions your visitors most commonly use. Ensure that all of your website testing is done using these resolutions.

When it comes to local engagement, Social Networking is going beyond Twitter and Facebook these days.

There are now multiple social networking oriented mobile apps garnering a lot of attention from users on the go. For instance, Foursquare, a popular social app, has over 20 million users. Such applications are used to locate you and then send that update to family and friends, or pass on local updates from the surrounding area as soon as you check-in to a place. Learn more about local updates here.

Being listed in such local social networking sites provides a great opportunity for sending updates to people/groups in your locality. Updates on deals and offers are rated highly amongst social app users.

Without spending a dime on advertisments, this provides a great way to reach mobile customers in your vicinity.

Examples of local social networking apps: FourSquare, NextDoor, Rally, Rummble, Plyce, Tellmewhere, Mobnotes, Blockboard, Yelp, Brightkite, Grindr, Shoutitout, Friendticker, Dailyplaces, Geodruid , Whrrl, hummba.com, feest.je, WeReward.com, Where, Facebook, Check.In, Loopt, Hotlist and tymr.

Resouces:

Local Updates Service by Foursquare

Local Social Networks Boon for SMBs

The Landing Page is one of the most important pages of your website because it is the first page users encounter when visiting your site. The landing page makes your first impression so it should be effective. Landing pages should:

Get a visitor to go to a specific page.

Get a visitor to make a purchase.

Get a visitor to give permission for you to register them or to follow up with them (by email, phone, etc.).

Get a visitor to tell a friend about the site or product (social sharing).

Get a visitor to learn something, post a comment or provide feedback.

From an SEO standpoint, a landing page should have:

Keywords: relevant and consistent keywords with a high frequency of use.

Internal links: a relevant and consistent use of keywords in all of your hyperlinks' anchor text.

It's important to earn your user's trust in order to increase your conversion rate. The following tips for conversion forms and security should help make your visitors feel that their information is being treated securely and respectfully.

Conversion Tips

Whenever possible, avoid asking for inscription before using your service. If registration is required, provide an obvious way to do so.

Keep the process short and simple.

Only require necessary information.

Distinguish clearly and consistently between required and optional data entry fields.

Use captcha only when necessary.

Security Tips

Provide the level of security needed. Use a secure area ('https') when dealing with any critical data. Https sites are more work for the servers, so there is the possibility of a slower download speed. Keep your site, and its certificate, on a high performance host.

Ensure secure certificates are up-to-date.

Avoid advertisements on contact pages, about pages, support sections and privacy pages.

Logging in

Ensure either a link or a login form is readily available from any page.

Once logged in, make sure that a logout link is readily available in an obvious spot.

Provide an option for visitors to reclaim forgotten passwords.

Contact Us Page

The Contact Us page enables users to get in touch with your organization. Giving users the means to send feedback or ask questions encourages them to trust the site and its owners.

List physical locations and opening hours.

Allow users to contact you via the method they prefer. Don't provide more methods, however, than you can efficiently manage.

Provide a feedback form as a structured way for users to leave feedback about the site, products, services and overall experience.

Make sure that your titles are optimized for SEO.

When writing your titles you should know:

Your meta titles will appear in search engine results. The search engines show only the first 70 characters (spaces included) of the titles.

Keep your titles short and use the right - appealing, popular and marketing-minded - keywords.

Be consistent with your keywords, using the same ones in the meta title, meta description, H titles, URL and in your content.

Avoid spammy keywords like: Free, Cheap, etc.

Use a combination of terms (buy, city name, etc.). Example: Compare Prices and Deals, Shop & Buy Online in Australia

Build combinations of pages with unique content and unique H titles for each product, category, city, etc.

Some SEO professionals use the main keywords twice in a meta title. It seems to work, but do it * smartly to avoid being considered a SpamIndexer. Example: Orlando Hotel: book a hotel in Orlando | mywebsite.com

Use dividers like: | or > or -