How to Get First Page Rankings For a Local Business in Less than Two Weeks

This article is pertained more towards "SEOs" rather than local business owners. It will teach you how to get local business websites to rank very quickly so that you can rent them out to local business owners. That being said, if you are a local business owner and happen to come across this article - you should pay attention so that you can beat the SEO's to the punch.

So you have a day job. Does it involve link building? Article writing? Computer programming? Web or graphics design? Chances are, that if you are reading this article, you are in some way, shape or form, interested or involved in SEO. If you aren't already, then I am about to explain why you should be.

There are many "hacks" that allow you to get to the top of the SERPs (search engine results pages) for all sorts of different niches - some that the heads of Google absolutely hate, and some that the heads of Google absolute love, and some that the heads of Google have no opinion on. As long as you are providing some type of value to the people that are typing in the search queries, then Google will usually stay out of your way.

This is the beauty of the local business niche. As long as you are providing a telephone number and getting people to use it, and the people that are answering the phone are actually delivering the services that the people that are calling are in need of, then Google really doesn't have a problem with your web site. And even if you have a day job that takes up a lot of your time - you can still work on a side project in the local business niche and expect great results.

The Local Business Niche 101

There are an infinite amount of businesses out there that need to increase their web visibility. Most of them have no idea how the Internet even works (I remember one particular occasion where the founder of a home building company was trying to plug his URL into the Google search bar - he thought Google was the Internet). That's where you will come in.

It is relatively easy to get on the first page of the SERPs for local business websites as long as you follow this "algorithmic" approach of developing your website and your SEO that I am about to reveal to you. But first, you should understand a few things:

• Not every niche is the same. A lot of niches are a lot more competitive than others, and for that reason, even though this approach will be considered somewhat of a "one size fits all" approach; it probably will not work in local markets that are extremely competitive. A few examples might be the realty, dentistry, and winery niches. That being said, it still works for a lot - and I mean a lot - of different niches.
• Just because you might be able to rank for a certain niche with your web site - doesn't mean you should spend the time and money doing so. You should think about the ROI of the company you would be promoting on the web and if it would even be worth it to compensate you before you start creating any websites. You should know what a potential customer might be worth to the business you are targeting.

Alright, so What is the Formula

Like any other Internet venture, getting into the local business niche will begin with the Google AdWords keyword tool. You want to use City-Service or City-Product keyword combinations to get a good grip on some valuable keyword phrases to target. Anything with a search volume over 60 is usually a good niche to consider.

You see, the City-Service/Product keyword phrase is like no other keyword phrase out there on the market. "Arlington Heating" means nothing to a heating and cooling company in New York, but it means potentially thousands and thousands of dollars to a heating and cooling company in Northern Virginia. It is one of the only types of keyword phrases where 70-300 searches per month is a very high search volume.

Step 1: Choosing the right Domain Name

After you get a fix on some potential keyword phrases to go with the next thing you should do is choose a domain name. And this is the most important part.

The local niche is one of the niches out there where exact match domain names still play a very vital role. That is because there is relatively still a very low amount of competition for those domain names. You aren't battling with people all over the globe and therefore local business websites tend to have a lot less backlinks than websites that are nationally relevant - making the domain name more important. Exact match domain names are a must for this to work.

Step 2: Perfect On-Site SEO

There are a few things that you can do to make sure that your homepage is perfectly optimized for the keyword phrase that you bought the domain name for. Here they are in a list fashion:

• Make sure that you have your keyword phrase in an H1 tag and that that is the first thing the Google Bots will see
• You want to make sure that the city you are optimizing for is in listed in many of your navigation links e.g. "*CITY* Services"
• Make sure that you have 550-650 words on the home page.
• Make sure that the city name is mentioned 15-20 times
• Make sure that the service is mentioned 15-20 times
• Make sure that the City-Service combination is mention 2-5 times, and that it is in the title
• Make sure that you have at least 10 pages indexed

You also want to make sure that you link out to 3-5 different authority web sites at the bottom of your page. I usually use Google, Weather.com, Wikipedia, and the home page for the official web site of the city you are targeting. Other good practices include linking to authority sites that are related to the city or service you are building the website for (I think Google really likes this).

Step 3: Off-Site SEO

Because your on-site SEO will be so good, your off-site SEO - which will be mainly link building - should be very minimal. Find a few link paid link directories ranging form $5-$50 dollars to begin with. The sooner you get a link up the sooner you can clock that link age (Google recognizes the first time they see a link for your site) which is just as important (if not more important) than domain name age. You should be able to do the entire link building yourself, and therefore shouldn't be in the need of a SEO company.

You should also build a few contextual links. You want to use the some of your main keywords as the anchor text. 5-10 Links should suffice, and you will also want to try to get at least one link that use the phrase "click here" as the anchor text.

Hint: A great place to start looking is realtor blogs. They seem to love guest posts and if you can find one with the city name in the domain name with a high page rank and Alexa rank then it's like finding a gold mine. And they are great for building relevancy in your area as they are as similar as it will get in keyword structure without being your direct competition. Another great place to start would be asking the companies that provide products to the company you are renting the website for to link to the site. This, of course, requires you to have the site already rented out however.

After this your site should start ranking pretty well within two weeks. You want to find someone to rent the site out from you as soon as possible, and should consider finding someone before you start even building the site. This way you can get paid to get your site to rank and you can also get Google places set up - which should also help your site in the SERPs. If not, then it's time to buckle down and start cold calling!

Author Bio: This article was written by Phillip Russell. Philip blogs for www.inetzeal.com - where you can get a local business listing. In his spare time he likes to write about his Interent marketing ventures.

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