Get your website listed locally

In addition to all major search engines, you should also try to get listed in local search engines and directories. This could really help you in getting a better position in the search engines.

Many potential customers will try to phone you or visit you before making a purchase. If you want to sell to the world, you may be tempted to skip this step.

Here's why you shouldn't do that:

- You might get good local rankins much faster than general rankings. That is, you'll be at the top of the search engine results page faster for "Surrey guitar repair" than you will for "guitar repair.You should take adavantag of it since many people search that way.

- Every possible listing you have is a link and every link is like a vote for your website. We'll talk more about that in the future. For now, just know that links in reputable local directories are a good thing for your web site.

- Your presence in local listings makes search engines more likely to offer you to people in your area. With geotargeting, people in Surrey who type in "guitar repair" will be given Surrey guitar repair services like yours first - but only if the search engines understand that you are in Surrey. Listings in local directories help search engines grasp that.

Important Local Listings All of these directories offer free listings. In general, you must have a local address to be included.

- UK Local Search

- Google local business center gets you on the map at the top of the page. You'll have to confirm your listing by phone or post.

- Yahoo Local requires a brick and mortar location, and won't list businesses that sell only online, even if you have a local address. - For ask city you can email askcitybusiness@help.ask.com with your information.

- Localeze

- Thomson Local

- Scoot

- Touch Local

- city-visitor

- Yell direct, today's Yellow Pages As with all listings, the key to success with these is to follow directions very precisely. Often, the directions seem needlessly complex and finicky. This is intentional; the directories want to make the instructions so complicated that only human beings can follow them. The links we've given you, though, are the most direct, so they'll speed the process up quite a bit.

You should also search for local directories in your own city, and consider your Chamber of Commerce and similar organisations, since they often link to the websites of members.

Niche Directories There are thousands of little directories. Some are link farms - pages set up to facilitate link exchanges. Many are the honest effort of people in specific areas to give useful information about their field.

Chances are that you use UKMusic if you are a musician.com, UK Music Directory, Musician UK, or EntsWeb - or perhaps even more narrow and specific listings.

It is, for you, easier and more comfortable and faster to go to your specific directory than to use Google. So, if you repair guitars, it makes sense for you to list your services in directories that cater specifically to guitarists. In your own field, you may already know of some good websites for the purpose. However, you can find more by searching with a string like this:

- Guitar repair "add URL"

- Guital repair UK "suggest site"

- Guitar repairs "add listing"

One tool that will speed this up is the Link Search Tool. Type in your keywords (remember your keywords?) and this tool will run searches like this for you. You will have hundred of possible sites where you might choose to list your website.

Check that we said, you might choose to? This shouldn't be automatic. Poor quality links will not benefit you the same way a high quality link would.

- Is it a valuable site? If there isn't good content at the site, you don't need to be listed there.

- Is it relevant to your customers? Even if there are guitar repair links at DatingLinkXchange.co.uk, it may still not really be a good place to list your guitar repair services.

Your next steps:

- You need to make sure that your local address appears on your website.

- List your website with local search engines and directories.

- Identify the best directories in your market niche and list your site with them.

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