<p>SEO can bring local advertisers more business than traditional advertising, by following a few simple steps. There is a disconnect between the term, "World Wide Web" and how the Internet is actually used. Yes we can reach around the world and watch videos of local beach surfers on the isles of the sea, but when we need to find a scooter shop or find someone to re-upholster our couch the, "very local web" magically appears. The local web is segmented in the minds of the Internet surfer with help of some carefully planned and executed Search Engine Optimization. This is how a typical search goes: <br /><br />First we go to Google and look for "scooter", but the search shows results for mobility scooters, electric scooters, and moped scooters. But we want to get our scooter repaired, so now it is time for the second search with the term "scooter repair", and the results are narrowed down to just the type of scooter service we are looking for. But there is still a problem. We are seeing results for Internet scooter resellers, Scooter shops in other Cities or even other States. Time for the third search term, "scooter repair Orem", and we then see the "very local web" come into view. This type of search happens for all kinds of products and services, and tens of thousands upon tens of thousands of searches like this happen every day.<br /><br /> In Orem Utah, Endurance Scooters is a local scooter dealer who has a repair shop, sells new scooters, and sells parts locally and on the Internet as Scooter Stock. When we search on the term "scooter repair Orem" the first page of results shows seven or eight links that will lead users to Endurance Scooters or Scooter Stock, without any Pay-per-click advertising. The owner reports over ninety percent of the business come in from Internet users. Why does the business owner dominate the first few pages of an Internet search….. You guessed it SEO. Search Engine Optimization works wonders on the local level; it is easy to make a big splash in a small pond, using mostly free methods of SEO. <br /><br />The steps are simple; we will use the previous example as a case study, but remember these steps can be used for most local business, products and services. <strong><br /></strong></p> <p><strong>Step One:</strong> We need to get a free website evaluation from several SEO consulting firms. Often many of us work to get a website up, but do not look beyond that. The most common issues that come back from any free evaluation will center on meta tags, key words, page descriptions, and content related issues. If you are a scooter repair shop, be sure your meta data has "scooter repair" in the mix; be sure you have a landing page devoted to scooter repair. Somehow get your website fixed. Generally the cost is reasonable and can be done by the same people who designed your website, do not spend thousands for this, one or two hundred is plenty, and it can often be done for much less. <strong></strong></p> <p><strong>Step Two:</strong> Write a blog on the website devoted our products and services and how they are available in our Town or City, this is very important, also we need to include in our blog, our local address and contact information. We will use our Town name, product or service several times in the blog, but do not over do it; our blog needs to be useful and interesting. The length of the blog entry will need to be two hundred words or better, that sounds like a lot of writing, but it is not, it is about one half of a type written page. Cost for this step is free, just your time and the time of a good friend to proof read our blog before posting. If we must pay someone to write something on our blog, do not spend more than twenty five dollars, or we have spent too much.</p> <p><strong>Step Three:</strong> We know our address and phone number, so go signup in as many local Internet directories as you can. Google has a local directory, super pages, newspapers, Television and Radio stations often have Internet directories, professional associations, and government. One thing we must do, is put a website link to our product or service landing page, from step one. This step can be done at little or no cost, we can even have an administrative assistant do this work. <strong></strong></p> <p><strong>Step Four:</strong> Time to show off with some article marketing, we are in business offering our product and services because we are experts in what we have to offer. Let’s take that knowledge and share it, write a few articles about us and our services. If we own a scooter repair shop, write about changing the oil in a scooter, or how to store a scooter in the wintertime or how to find parts for scooters. You can have staff members write articles about something they know best. We need to make the articles informative, useful, and fun. Try to say with general topics like routine maintenance, or tips for making a product purchase more useful or last longer or get more value out of it. Do not write articles that give out competitive advantages or trade secrets or how to do the extraordinary things we can provide, be helpful, but not overly helpful. We can hire people to write for us, the cost for each article should be no more than twenty five dollars. With our articles in hand, post them to websites focus on publishing articles, some sites are "how to" sites, some are industry specific, others publish categorized articles like Buzzle. Once again the most important part of an article is to place a website link to our websites, that is what I am doing with this article by putting in a link to <a href="
http://ixod.com/services/search-engine-optimization" rel="nofollow">iXod Search Engine Optimization</a>. This allows an incoming links to our websites, and another opportunity for the search engines to provide information about our company and put the link in the search results. Posting and publishing our articles can be done for free as well, it is a bit tedious and time consuming, this task can also be hired out for two or three hundred dollars. <strong></strong></p> <p><strong>Step Five:</strong> Do the math and watch the results, for the cost of a modest print advertising campaign, we have Search Engine Optimization working for us, and unlike Print, Radio, or Television, our efforts are visible on the Internet long after the last advertisement is played on the Radio or tossed away. Now you know why SEO brings more value and huge cost savings to the local advertiser.</p><strong>About the Author:</strong><br /><p>Pat Holman is the CEO/President of <a href="
http://ixod.com" rel="nofollow">iXod Conversion Marketing</a> providing <a href="
http://ixod.com/conversion-tools" rel="nofollow">website conversion tools</a> 888-229-8161</p>
