Fighting For A Foothold In Local Search Engine Results

If you own a local business and you have a website, chances are you want your site to show up in the major search engines for your top keyword phrases. For many of you, right now, your biggest competition for search engine placement is not your local competitors -- it is the large, national directories. For example, I just Googled the search term "lawyer, Westport, CT." Not surprisingly, the page one Google results are all non-local directories. Not a single, individual law firm's website in the top ten. This is not unique to the legal field -- it is happening across the board. The number of directory-type results returned by a search engine will vary from industry to industry. (Define "directory.") Usually, in these cases, most of the directories are "vertical" directories -- such as a directory showing thousands of lawyers, perhaps sorted by specialty.

How To Gain (And Defend) High Search Engine Ranking

There are two ways to fight back: join some of the directories, and/or work to optimize your site. I don't think much of the first method, because many of these directories are as crowded as the phone books they are descended from, not to mention badly designed. How will a consumer choose your firm out of 200 other accident lawyers in Connecticut? But, where it is free or cheap, it doesn't hurt to join a directory. (Joining a directory can sometimes provide a good link back to your own site, which in itself is a very good thing for search engine ranking).

Optimizing Your Website Is The Key

The second way to defend or improve your search engine ranking is also the best long-term bet. Make Search Engine Optimization (SEO) a part of your website strategy. While there are many components to SEO, it boils down to two things -- adding original, quality content to your site, and getting quality links back to your site. Both of these tasks are hard work, but they are the underpinnings of good SEO.

Content Is Still King

The best way to get good links is to come up with some really creative, original content.That's what the search engines want, and, not coincidentally, that is what will bring you the best in-bound links. For example, you may want to think about adding a blog. It's a great way to both add new content and keep refreshing that content. Beyond that, you may want to think about adding a new page or two to your site, especially "extendable" pages. (ie, add a main page, with sub-pages off it, on the same theme).

Be Creative And Make Your Website Content Unique

Best of all, if you can think of some new content that would really appeal to a certain sector in your industry, and cause some sites to link to you, that is the best of all worlds. An example: we manage an online Ecommerce site that sells antique prints. We devised a strategy to add an important reference book to the site, a reference book that is currently only available in printed book form. The book is in the public domain, so copyright is not an issue. When we add this content to the site, we will be creating a unique online resource that we can then promote, and hopefully people will link to. (This creates one-way links to the site, which are much preferable to reciprocal links). Adding this content also increases the sheer number of web pages in the site, which is also a plus for search engine optimization.

Understand What The Search Engines Want

So, if you see your site getting shouldered off page 1 of Google by the big directories, fight back. Unlike the big directories, you can create something that is really unique -- great content. In the end, great content is what the search engines will reward.