Optimising for local search

[temi]

Guys,
What are your tips for optimising a site for local search in a particular area of the the country?

 

[Bagi Zoltán]

Make sure that you:

• Use the national domain
• Have a tons of quality backlink from websites which have the same geographic target as yours
• Host the website on webserver which is associated with the certain country according to its IP address
• Placed meta language tag which is suitable for your targetted country, though i am not very sure that it make sense

Otherwise i recognised that if you use a national tld Google set your geographic target automatically.

 

[temi]

Thanks very much for that Zoli, I am thinking of even more local search, for example, I have just typed "herefordshire canoe" in Google and i got the attached image, actually showing local business that has things to do with Canoes in that specific area.

Also yesterday, one of my SEO client who does not sell his product to the public got a call from someone who is very local to him asking to come and view a product... I am convinced that call was a result of "Local search" that is the info I am looking for, how to optimise for a local area for example, London, or Birmingham etc and not just the whole of UK.

I know having your address on the site is one of the factors... what other factors?

 

[Bagi Zoltán]

Temi, nowadays i have the feeling that the different google services are very well integrated depsite i don't know too much about the local business center i suggest you to give it a try, i suppose it will have major effect on the results.

 

[temi]

Zoli,
The url you gave me was useful, I think that is what is responsible for local listings, I just added a site, confirmed it by phone and its listed

Cheers mate

 

[OldWelshGuy]

Pm sent, I am not giving out such valuable information

 

[Bagi Zoltán]

James, i feel very bad that i can not know this information

 

[temi]

You know the info Zoli, perhaps you are just not conscious of it. I pass the info James shared with me to you. I am sure he will not mind.

James, i feel very bad that i can not know this information

 

[OldWelshGuy]

Ab solutely no problem. Any one who is a valid member can have it I just don't want it out there on the web

 

[KingPin36]

You know what, local search is something I DON'T know how to do!!

I have never needed or been asked to do it soooo. My own fault really. I should read up on it because I'm sure their will be a time I'll get asked about it.

KP

 

[johnafrankllin]

I think local search result displayed for any site is restricted for a limited time period.
it is much like a classified. You can add your sites to different classified site.
craigslist classifieds: jobs, housing, personals, for sale, services, community, events, forums
Hot Frog - Your USA Business Directory
Gumtree.com: UK's No. 1 in classifieds - jobs, property, cars and more

There are many you might be knowing.

Regards
John

 

[Dohi]

just the topic I was looking for

I created a google cse to search my site (and only my site). it uses a local xml and results page, and since the site's in hungarian, I was wondering if I should make any changes to the code. I created it at google.com, but it doesn't seem to have any problems finding hungarian content on my site, though obviously when I search for 'stephen king' on google.com I'm not even on the first 5 pages, but then it searches the entire web and on my site it only searches my site.

so I'm guessing changing google.com to google.hu in the results page (var googleSearchDomain) won't make any difference?

 

[MarkeD]

Don't forget going into Google Webmaster tools and setting your country in there.

 

[rhyswynne]

Pm sent, I am not giving out such valuable information

I would like to see the PM too if I may please?

Also, is there a "client manager" account for Google Local Business search? I do a lot of work with SME's in my local area and as far as I can see I can only add information about one company under my account.