Regionalizing Your Website

Search engines open information to the entire world. But what if you're a small business owner who merely wants to effectively market to your local audience?

If this is the case, your site

probably only shows up in search engine results after a long list of national sites with big names that pose no competitive threat to your business. Unfortunately, that doesn't stop them from sapping your site traffic.

Providing information about your location and market sphere that search engines understand can help you reach only people in your business area.

First, be sure to optimize your site for local keywords. That means using your town or city name abundantly in your Web site copy, as well as in the keyword section of your site code. And if you can, register a URL that uses keywords, such as www.MasonsTampaAutoRepair.com.

Be careful when you optimize your site not to destroy its credibility by cramming it full of keywords. For more advice on this topic, read Top 10 Search Engine Optimization Mistakes.