While you do need to be patient, there´s no reason not to continue tweaking and improving your local search engine optimization. Add more content to your website. If you have a blog, be sure to post to it on a regular basis. Work hard to get backlinks while you´re waiting for all your work to pay off. Once you get picked up by the search engines, you will move up through the ranks faster because you´ve already done so much to help your blog grow.

A huge part of local search engine optimization is the waiting. Waiting for your website to move up in the ranks, waiting for Page Rank or for your website to get noticed . . . but you should never sit still. Keep working at building those links and adding more value to your website. Search engines help with traffic, but people are the ones who make actual purchases, so make sure your website is built to keep the visitors that come to you via your local search engine optimization efforts.

1. Use your keywords in your business name. This can be a rather extreme option if you have already named your business. Consider adding a word or two to the end. For example, if you have a salon called “Belle´s Beauty” consider adding “Salon” to the end of it, since many people will be looking for “beauty salon” and not beauty.
2. Have several listings. If you are listing your business in directories online, make sure you list under each town or area where you offer services. People usually look for local businesses that are nearest where they live, which means they could be searching in areas near you, but won´t find you because you are only under one location.
3. Include nicknames in your SEO. Local search engine optimization can be more effective if you use the local nicknames for your area. Let´s say you´re on the West Side, you would want to include that on your website, along with any other keywords. This helps when locals are searching for businesses.

These are ways to boost your local search engine optimization and local advertising that many people won´t even think of. That means you get a headstart on everyone else!

10best.com
Aol.com
ChefMoz.org
Citysearch.com
Dine.com
DiningGuide.com
Dinnerbroker.com
Frommers.com
Gayot.com
Giatamedia.com
Greenopia.com
Holidaycheck.com
Holidaycheck.de
Holidaycheck.es
Holidaycheck.fr
Holidaycheck.it
Holidaycheck.nl
Holidaycheck.pl
Holidaycheck.ru
Hotelchatter.com
HotelGuide.com
Hotelguide.net
Insiderpages.com
Menupages.com
Mytravelguide.com
Priceline.com
RestaurantRow.com
Travelocity.com
Travelpost.com
Tripadvisor.com
Virtualtourist.com
Yahoo.com
Yelp.com
Zagat.com

All of these are from Miriam´s research of over 1,000 Google local map reviews. While some of these websites may not be very well known, they are obviously interesting to Google and should be watched carefully. Others, like Tripadvisor and Yahoo, are obviously already huge. Using these websites to your advantage can be a very intelligent move!

• Use local search engine optimized titles. Using your keyword phrase at the beginning of your blog post titles will help the blog and the individual posts rank well for your keywords.

• Use tags. Using your keywords in the title isn´t the only way to make your blog posts stand out to seach engines, you can also add tags. If you use WordPress, this is now automatically added at the bottom, just type in your keywords or tags.

• Link to other blog posts. Having interconnecting links is a great way to boost local search engine optimization, but you can boost the effect by picking one post per keyword and having all other articles with that keyword in them point to that particular page.

• Get backlinks. Local search engine optimization doesn´t stand alone, you need links from other websites to really get great rankings, so comment on other blogs and do what you can to gain backlinks from other sites.

• Use post titles in the URL. If you are using WordPress, this is very simple to do, you just need to go into Options, Permalinks and select Custom under Common Options. You will need to place the line inside quotations in the box “/%postname%/”. This will give you an URL with the actual post name in it, making it easier for people to remember and search engines to index.

Local search engine optimization is something that can be used very effectively for business blogs, especially local ones. Using local keywords in your blog titles and posts will help you get pretty high up in the search engines, if not in the first place.

According to the same report, 51% of people prefer to use the internet to look for local businesses, as opposed to just 24% who used print directories for reference. While printed business directories are still very useful (we certainly can´t discount that 24%!), the internet is obviously becoming a favorite medium for doing searches, making it that much more important to do local search engine optimization on your website.

While saving trees may be secondary to your desire to earn money, local search engine optimization can do both at the same time. All that is left to do is convince those who produce the business directories not to send them to those who have no need for them. The internet is faster and more efficient than a paper book and for this reason, more people are interested in using it as a resource.

Meta tags. Including your keywords in the meta tags of your webpage can really help with local search engine optimization.

Keyword tags. Add all your keywords and keyword phrases to the keyword tags. The latest version of WordPress makes this super easy with a separate line below the posting area.

Text links. Using text links that have your keywords as the anchor text can help things as well.

No-follow tags. This can be very useful when linking out to a “bad neighborhood”. Search engines won´t penalize you for linking to sites they don´t approve of if you use a no-follow command.

Sitemap. A sitemap lets search engine bots find each and every page on your website quickly and easily and helps you rank higher for keywords.

Themed keywords. Use your primary keywords, but add other ones in the same topic category. For example if your keyword is “make money online”, you might also use “earn money” and “home business”.

These more advanced local search engine optimization techniques allow you to get higher rankings, thus bringing in more traffic. It´s a good idea to employ as many local search engine optimization methods as possible to boost your chances of making it to that number one spot.

Titles
Using your keywords at the beginning of any titles and subtitles helps them stand out to search engines and this is a technique that should definitely be used if you want to get into local search engine optimization.

Headings
Put the keyword in your heading and at the top of your website where it will be scanned first by local search engine robots.

Anchor text
Use your keywords as links between pages and from other websites or blogs. This adds importance in the eyes of the search engines and is an excellent and well-used local search engine optimization technique.

Alt tags
When adding images to your website, be sure to include alt tags that use your keywords. This will help those searching for images to find you and can be a method of reaching internet surfers who wouldn´t normally come across your website.

Local search engine optimization isn´t just about articles that include your keywords. There is much more to it and by using these techniques and more advanced ones, you´ll put yourself ahead of the competition.

Submit to article directories. Writing unique articles that relate to your business can be a great way to build visibility and one-way backlinks, which are very valuable in terms of local search engine optimization.

Add your website to the Chamber of Commerce. Most have their own website with listings for local businesses and it can really be worth it to get your URL up there with a short blurb on your local business.

Look for local sites and directories to advertise on. Since they are local, you should be able to buy an ad for relatively cheap and this can also help you with the search engines, though not as much as “natural” backlinks.

The more of these local search engine optimization techniques that you use, the more times your information and URL will be repeated throughout the internet. You´ll get points for the backlinks, but this can also be helpful because some of these sites are already very popular with the search engines. That means your content can show up in the number one place for a search, even if your website is still on page ten! Worth your time, wouldn´t you say?

The idea behind links in local search engine optimization is that the more websites linking to your business, the more useful your website. While you may not always have a choice, you want the anchor text in these incoming links to use the keywords that you are trying to rank for in the local search engines. For example, rather than have “this site” linked, you want “My Keywords” to be linked. This gives your local business more weight with the search engines like Google.

Building links, while a vital local search engine optimization method, takes a lot of time. So, you may find that it is best to hire this work out to a site like Brick Marketing. That way you can focus on the more interesting parts of your business and let someone else worry about local search engine optimization techniques like building links.

One of my favorite tools for finding low competition keywords is Wordtracker. This is a very easy system to use. You just type in the word or phrase that you are thinking of and you will get a long list of similar words and phrases that are searched for on search engines.

In order to make this work for you, you will want to use your location as well as the keywords that describe your company. Let´s say, for example, that you have a shoe making business in Chicago. You would want to type in “Chicago” and “Shoe making” and see what comes up. Click on a search term and you´ll see another list pop up to the right that will tell you how often these terms are searched for.

Wordtracker is a very useful tool to help you find low competition keyword phrases that make local search engine optimization a piece of cake. Once you have selected all relevant keyword phrases, the system will go through them and tell you which phrases or words are most valuable for local search engine optimization.