SEO (aka Search Engine Optimization) is the action of maximizing your website to give it a higher change to rank high on Google and other search engine companies for the keywords that are most important to your business.

Local SEO is focusing your optimization efforts to specific cities or counties. It works best for companies with a brick and mortar business that are most interested in selling in their shop or for service based businesses that service clientele who live and work nearby. Indeed why would you want to optimize for the entire US if 100% of your clients come from the town of Santa Rosa, California?

Having a focused approach to your local market always render better SEO results in a quicker amount of time.

First you need to know which town(s) you want to optimize your site for. Even though your company may be located in a smaller city, you may want to consider optimizing for the hub of your county. It is common for Internet users to search for services in the biggest town in their region instead of their own small town.

In our region, the hub city is Santa Rosa located in Sonoma County. Many businesses benefit in optimizing their site for Santa Rosa even though their office may be a short drive away in Petaluma or Windsor. This is not lying, it is just good marketing practice especially if many of their customers come from Santa Rosa.

To optimize for a city like Santa Rosa is not very complicated but so is dieting. It takes consistent efforts. One easy way is to make sure you include the word Santa Rosa within the text of several of your webpages, not just in the footer like many do. Make sure the inclusion of Santa Rosa makes sense in a sentence; do not just stuff the keyword for the sake of SEO. Google is smart and will know if you do that.

Use the names of nearby towns and the name of your county. For us, it would be Santa Rosa, Petaluma, Rohnert Park, Sebastopol, Windsor, Healdsburg and words such as Sonoma County, California, North Bay, and Bay Area. This confirms to Google the location you are trying to optimize for.

Being on GoogleMap is great but requires an actual physical office in the city you are optimizing for. Claiming your listing in the map is free of charge. You simply go through a process of verifying you are the owner and that your company is indeed located there. For more on GoogleMap click here >>

Finally optimize your images for Santa Rosa or your city before uploading them onto your website. Name the images good SEO empowered keywords like “santarosa.jpg”. Use the Alt and Title tags for each image on your site and there too include local keywords.

If you do all of the above, you will see positive results in your ranking in a very short time. Again just like dieting it takes time, dedication and consistency. Good luck!