Title Tag Change That Makes a Local Difference
It doesn’t matter how large or small your business is targeting your local audience is always very important. Your surrounding communities can often times be some of your best customers and clients. Many times businesses will search for a vendor that is local just because they would rather give the business to someone locally rather than some company they might never be able to meet with in person, will you be visible when this happens from your audience?
If you live in a city or town that does not have any local search volume for the industry you are in that is ok. Craft some of your content on one of your high level pages like the home page or about page using the closest city related keywords that target your products or services.
For example (since SEO is on my mind, I would use this as an example) 
Current Title Tag: Search Engine Marketing Firm Offering SEO Related Services
Proposed Title Tag: Boston MA Search Engine Marketing Firm Offering SEO Related Services
Just by placing Boston MA into the title tag of the page it will allow you start moving around for your city related search terms, again this will help you target local visitors in the search engines only if that is where your business is located. Also, be sure to target the geographic area naturally into the on site factors, such as your content, etc. This will not make it all of a sudden appear for Boston terms but once you have spent some time creating good quality links and your website has generated enough authority in the eyes of the search engines your website will start to gravitate towards any related searches that might occur. Just because there is no search volume now doesn’t mean there won’t be in the future.
Prepare your website to appear for when someone does finally look for a vendor in your specific area. It can be difficult sometimes to want to sit and focus on your local audience when you have a business that can pull in a global audience but it is very important to be visible everywhere, even locally. Targeting your local audience with a heavier approach can lead to more opportunities than just search traffic. If you really make yourself stand out all of a sudden you have the ability to participate in some offline marketing write ups by local newspapers and magazines. Remember that many writers use the internet to research companies they are doing stories on so making yourself visible to your local audience could open many more doors than just online.
9 Responses to “Title Tag Change That Makes a Local Difference”
The Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Journal is Written by SEO Expert:
Nick Stamoulis
Tel - 781-999-1222
nick@brickmarketing.com
Brick Marketing - SEO Company
I couldn’t agree with you more Nick. I think that the treatment of many of the big names is very much because of how quick this industry has grown. The industry has so many pretenders in it that profess to do internet marketing but as we know do not do things right like 80% of the companies that say they do. Old school SEO people that have reputation are treated in many cases in this industry the way movie stars are. Would I ever ask someone to stop posting on a blog? Only if they were spamming. The foundation of a blog is to promote discussion. I have been in this industry since 2001. I have read a few of your articles Nick and I like the way you speak from the guy. Keep it up.
Hi DJ Kennedy – Toronto,
Are you trying to comment on my recent post about the SEO cliques:
http://www.searchengineoptimizationjournal.com/2010/03/05/seo-clique/
Anyway, thanks for reading and the comment!
We’ve been doing this for about 1,5 year now and are the number one result in almost any search machine around the world for the words in this screen name.
This works for a long time already. Another thing is that the more website’s you’re on with your physical address the more you will go up in the local search results placed next to the map shown in the Google serp`s. This is a logical result of the fact that it is the only way for Google to exactly now where your business is located.
Greetings fromDeventer
Hi Hypotheek in Deventer,
Thanks for reading and your comment. Very great points, having your street address visible is also a very important factor for local search.
Your quote : “Just because there is no search volume now doesn’t mean there won’t be in the future. ”
That’s right! Always, plan ahead. We never know, maybe one fine morning, someone looking for a JV partner that’s top ranking in the local district.
There you’re, ready to welcome them with your doors wide open.
Thanks Nick, as always.
I am a big fan of local search and think it is truly the best frontier online at this point in time. Competition is less for sure. How much easier is it to rank high for “oklahoma city plumber” than it is for “lose weight”
I think local search along with overall web marketing is the single best thing a local business can do. I have seen some great results.
LG
I like that idea. we started to do that a while back. We put the state in the title, and we have seen great result. Local search is king!
Thanks Nick.
Hi Jimi@health-articles,
It is truly amazing to see how many people I speak to who sometimes do not understand this very important key point.
Hi Lorraine,
Very true, another key point that I recommend for local search is taking an integrated approach, PPC, local profiles and local SEO (but that is another post topic all together
Hi Pierremarie,
Thanks for reading and your comment, local search is king!
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