I’ve been working on SEO (search engine optimization) to increase my organic search results for both my personal blog and website and my company’s website, mainly by focusing on tried-and-true SEO tactics and some newer ideas. My main goal for my blog is to improve in the SERPs (search engine results pages) for certain keywords (online marketing and social media related ones), but for my company, I want to completely own the SERPs on Google for one specific goal: I want anyone in my city (San Marcos, Texas) searching for “printing,” “web design,” or “social marketing” to pick up the phone and call me. In order to do this, I’ve been looking into some simple “geo-targeting” SEO tactics that you can use to do the same for yourself.There are countless ways to improve your rankings for organic-driven location-based search results, and I’m not sure of all of them. Chances are though, you haven’t really put much time into focusing on geo-targeting as an SEO strategy, or your SEO person or firm hasn’t made it a priority. For a start, try out these things and give it a month or two:

On-site optimization:

1. First and foremost, content is still king. SEO is based on one thing: proving to Google, Bing, and Yahoo that your site is important to the searchers. With this concept in mind, start building a database on your company’s website of articles, blog posts, links, and industry-related content that will “fill out” your site. SEO begins with content because without content, there’s nothing to optimize. Maybe there’s a way to tie-in your personal blog to your company’s site, or you can actually begin blogging for your company.
2. Pick out a few main keywords (not locations) that you’d like to target. You can choose a few that may seem more competitive, because you’re still going to be targeting a location or a region in addition to these keywords. For Higher Calling Media, I’ve chosen “printing,” “business cards,” “postcards,” “brochures,” “web design,” and “social marketing,” to name a few.
3. Categorize these keywords by order of importance. SEO is always easiest starting small, and doing this will help you determine which ones get header tags (<h1>, <h2>, etc.). Here’s my list:
   1. Printing
   2. Business Cards
   3. Web Design
4. Find some way to work both your geo-targeted keywords and your relevance keywords into your company’s site <title> tags. For me, my title should read “San Marcos Printing and Web Design” or something like that. In WordPress, this is as easy as installing the All-In-One SEO Pack and changing the settings around a bit. I don’t want to get too far into the details of WordPress SEO, but ViperChill has a GREAT overview of it. Read it and follow exactly what it says!
5. Work your other keywords into <h1> and <h2> tags (and sometimes <h3> tags), depending on keyword importance.
6. Use Scribe to help create extremely SEO friendly posts and content. It does cost money (they’re running a sale on it right now though), but it really is worth it. In addition to helping structure your content to target certain keywords, it also generates very intuitive tags and keywords for your META keyword box. Here’s a price breakdown:

“Scribe will come in 3 plan levels at 3 different monthly price points:

• Advanced: 300 evaluations a month (around 100 pages or posts) for $97 (they’re offering this package for $27/month until Friday, February 26th!)
• Publisher: 120 evaluations a month (around 40 pages or posts) for $47
• Starter: 30 evaluations a month (around 10 pages or posts) for $27″

Off-site optimization:

1. Use Google’s Local Business Center to add your company information for free to their directory. This alone will allow you to show up in Google Maps results listings for your geo-location.
2. When you create your listing, you can add coupons, locations, hours, and other great information, as well as videos and photos. Use these to get an edge over your competition. Google actually tells you how “complete” your profile is–get it to 100% and you’ll be in a much better position than your competitors.
3. Start building backlinks that include your location keywords as well as your relevance keywords. This will help Google know that you’re actually in a certain location, and it won’t hurt your organic non-location-based results, either.
4. As always, keep using SEO, social media, and other online tools to create buzz around your products, services, and general “happenings.” Every little bit counts, and with most things SEO, it may take a little while, but it will start to pay off for your business!

If you have anything to add or want some questions answered, just leave a comment below! I’d love to hear from you!

Related posts:

1. Online Marketing Basics: 10 Ways to Drive More Traffic to Your Blog
2. SEO for Business: A Quick Tip
3. 12 Great SEO-Ready WordPress Themes
4. Small Business SEO
5. The Social Media Paradigm

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