We recently encouraged businesses to expand their local search horizons and add more local flavor to their national search campaigns. Now, in a post at the Content Rich blog, Jon Wuebben offers more arguments for growing local roots in your search campaigns. 

Wuebben quotes Neg Norton, president of the Yellow Pages Association, who reports: "Even if the searcher doesn't know the company or brand they will ultimately give their business to, the decision to actually make a purchase has often already been made" by the time they enter a search phrase online. "That is a strong argument for local merchants to develop and maintain an online profile if they haven't already done so."

Who knows how many folks in your area would be thrilled to discover you were right there all the time? Well, it's time to find out! And the best way to do it is to get your name up-close and local.

Wuebben offers a few tips to help you get started. Among them:

• Optimize each page of your site for SEO. Make sure the HTML tags on your page include your location info, and your address appears in at least a few places on your site. Remember to include your city name in key places like title tags and headings.
• Solicit local links. To get your company listed, submit to directories like Superpages, Yelp, and YellowPages.com. "Some are paid listings, but investing $100-$400 is a small price to pay for the potential traffic," Wuebben says.

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