Local Organic Search - Best Practices

[abkaiser]

So I have a client who is a local business, and only cares about attracting local clients within a medium-sized, US-based city.

They do not have a PCC campaign, so I can't do geo-targeting based on that.

They do not (yet) have a blog, RSS feed, newsletter, or similar output. As of now, this is a static site.

How have you implemented location-based organic SEO techniques?

My current ideas are to:
- create a Google business entry
- keyword sprinkling their page text with phrases like "We are a blue widget business in Cityname, State."

Any other techniques you could recommend?

Thanks,

Andy

[tedster]

One rather new possibility is to have a Google Webmaster Tools account. Within the features that GWT offers is an opportunity to tell Google about your site's location - and even different locations for different directories within the same site.

Here's a reference thread from October when this was introduced:
[webmasterworld.com...]

[BradleyT]

Put their address/phone number in text at the bottom of some pages.

[Robert Charlton]

I'd say, put geo information on all possible entry pages, and include geo variants that are likely to be searched at least once somewhere on the page. Eg, include the state name abbreviation as well as full state name, metro area name, county name, etc.

Not all of this information needs to be included in the title element... nor should it be... but, for some searches, the most likely (and competitive) geo information (generally the cityname) should be in the title too. The most common search usage should indicate location of the cityname in the title.

Some market areas are so geo-competitive that, as you indicate, you may have to optimize for cityname widgets throughout the page.

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 6:48 pm (utc) on Dec. 16, 2007]