Local SEO Starting Points - 5 Basics

Before beginning a local seo effort, you should create 5 things:

1. A Keyword List
2. A Web Site
3. A Facebook Page
4. A Twitter Profile
5. Google Places

Your Keyword List

First you need to create a keyword list. There are two approaches we use with Daytona Beach SEO sites. First, use everything that your clients ask you for and about and everything you now about your business. The second approach is to go to the Google Keyword Tool and type each of those keywords into the tool. Enter one keyword at a time. You'll be looking for terms that you missed and checking for search volume on your keywords.

Once you have the list, you need to create 3-5 categories. These categories should be showing traffic in the keyword tool, but they should also be relevant to your business. Under each of the categories, place 3-5 other relevant keywords. This second set of keywords will be the pages under the categories.

A Web Site

We don't have enough time to go into how to create a website, but it's very important to undersand about using the keyword categoires and relevant keywords to create your site framework. Yes, you or your writer will need to write between 15 to 30 pages. You will also need a contact page, about page and a privacy page.

Your website is your main online asset. You use it to sell and promote your products and tell the world about your business. Never forget though, that to be effective you need to provide content that's useful to your customers and visitors.

Add a blog to your website to talk about your business and special offers and to link to the other pages you create.

A Facebook Page

Set up a Facebook Page related to your business. This is separate from your personal account. On your Facebook Page you will create content that visitors and customers will want to respond to and talk about. Your want them to "Like" your page.

Facebook Pages are about engagement. The level of engagement will be different for different businesses. Businesses that offer daily specials, coupons and so on are ideal for Facebook. Others will struggle to come up with fresh content.

You can put plenty of information about your business on Facebook, but if you're not willing to engage with people, it won't be worth the effort.

A Twitter Profile

Set up your Twitter Account and then tweet every thing you do with your business. Tweet about new pages and post. Tweeting with a link is helpiing pages show up in the search engines faster and rank better. As your followers grow and they retweet your posts, your pages will gain more favor with Google and the other search engines.

Google Places

If you have a business, claim your listings are pushing up to the top of their search results and you need to be there.

Summary

These five properties are the basics of local SEO. You may want to write articles to send links to your pages. You could also set up Squidoo Lenses or Hub Pages to attract traffic and send links to your Facebook Page and web site. In small business SEO, first create good content and then get your website created and running. After you site is up, then promote it to build traffic and rank in the search engine results.