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7 SEO Secrets to Dominate your Local Market

All of these suggestions are free to implement and will generate very high quality incoming links and a pretty healthy amount of traffic.

You can use your ActiveRain profile just fine with each of these items but you will likely generate the best results with your own Individual Blog. (If you don't have an Individual Blog yet click here to get one.)

Please note that pretty much all of the items below require that you have a free account with the applicable website.

1. Submit yourself to Google Local. Make sure to put in your blog or profile URL in the website entry form field.

2. Add your blog to Local.Yahoo.com.

3. Submit your blog to Yelp!

4. Create a blog post for everyone of your listings and submit the URL to Google Base.

5. Create a blog post for everyone of your listings and submit the URL to Craigslist.

6. Add links to your website, ActiveRain profile, and your Individual blog, on your LinkedIn profile page. Your LinkedIn profile is second only to your ActiveRain profile in terms of Google Juice.

7. Add yourself to YellowPages.com. The search engines tap this database to populate their Local search results.

(The cow above looks very dominating; similar to the way you will look to your competitors if you implement these strategies. In case you were wondering, that is why I chose it as the picture for this post.)

Posted by Jonathan Washburn on 01/29/2009 11:41 PM

Comments (88)

SEO in the Online Marketing Channel

seo, search engine optimization, local search, hyperlocal

Originally posted at: jonwashburn: 7 SEO Secrets to Dominate your Local Market

88 Comments on 7 SEO Secrets to Dominate your Local Market

JAN

Thanks for the info. This reminds me that I have to go clean up the Activerain profile LOL. ~Rita

My linkedin profile recently shot up to #5 for the term real estate in my area. 2 days later my facebook page was up there as well and both are still hovering. That outranks my website, my blog, all my other profiles, my company's website, and 99% of the agents in my area. Why? Not sure yet. Might be my blog feeding it content but I cant tell yet.

Google base is fun. I have read some good posts on how to control that as well. You can really rank well on there.

Google local. I show up as the first result for a lot of terms in my area. I cant complain about that. One other trick is you can enter more than once (dont tell anyone in my area please!)

Hey Running Man,

Thanks for the heads up on all this great stuff. Mostly news to me, I'll check it out!

Jonathan- Thanks for some of these tips. I put our office on our google local business directory and got one listing from that! Nothing to sneeze at for 5 minutes of effort!

Most of the things you have listed here take very little time. You get 80% of your best SEO from only 20% of your SEO activities and usually it is the smaller things to do that give the greatest dividends.

Funny about Yelp. I learned about Yelp from ResPres at NAR. I just went back on to check things out since I did not particpate with Yelp do to some other pressing matters. But I just took a peak just now and just as I suspected nothing for my town. In fact under Restaurants, I looked and said, WOW, some reviews, but when I clicked on who did the reviews it is some guy down here for the season from Long Island! He is not even from here!

Just like Twitter. I love Twitter and use it to connect with awesome people all over the world, both in and out of real estate and got a listing from an agent who does not live here anymore, and a buyer from CA to buy a 2 M $ ranch. But when I went on Twitter, guess what, there are 3 Twitterers in my town!

We are NOT Seattle! LOL! Katerina

Jonathon as usual thank you very much for the tips. Gotta love the RAIN!

JAN

Johnathan - thanks for the tips! I'm going to have to look out for more of your posts--I'm subscribing now!

Good deal. Some of these I haven't heard of and will certainly implement. Thanks for explaining the cow pic; I thought that might be Stewart gone Satanic. Bookmarked. The SEO education I gather from AR is both free and priceless.

Jon - these are big money links... you are one generous dude!! :-)

I only wish I had been able to traverse the ice. You have a hand that needs shaking.

Jonathan- Can we now upgrade to Activeblogs with our own domain names?

Thanks Jon..more to learn but I'm game!

Katerina - Jon is at the Gym, so I'm taking the liberty to answer for him, yes you can. Join our RAIN Radio broadcast tomorrow and get the low-down. If we can keep Jon in shape, he may join us. :-)

Jon,

Great ideas all. I spent the better part of the evening implementing them. Thank you as always,

Jon, thank you so much! This is super information to me. Just took care of some of them now. Thanks again. kevincavanaughonline.com

Jonathon, I will try to get my blog onto these sites in the next little while.

A dominating cow? I'm not sure those two words even belong in the same sentence! :)

Brad- What time is the radio show? It is really hard for me to listen to radio shows when our phones are ringing. I am in the middle of training our new listing manager and we have 15 of our listings with contracts on them. I have two lenders to talk to tomorrow to finish up on negotiating the best deal for our clients and 3 new short sale intake evaluations to do with homeowners who need to list and do a short sale. Intake evaluations- I do them over the phone and take about an hour each. ( saves a lot of time driving to and from their properties). So can you give me the scoop another way? Thanks! Some of us got to walk our talk and get those listings and sales:)

Jonathan, never thought of doing this. I just bookmarked this post. Thanks for the links.

Wow, what a great post Jonathan, you rock. Thanks for the information and I'm signing up for your blog. Have a great day.

Thank you for this fantastic tip for pushing us to the top. Like Brad say, you are a generous dude! :0)

This is so beyond me. I've bookmarked this to save this for later. Thanks much J.

I love it when folks share their knowledge! Thanks a bunch...started adding me in ..some I had ....but some I didn't. Thank you thank you thank you...like Brad said,.....you are one generous dude.

Excellent tips. Thank you. BTW, I hope all went well in DC. I'm sure you rocked them.

Thanks for the links. Although all don't apply to me, I'm definitely working on the ones that do!

~Renae

Hmmm I was wondering what happened with NAR too..

Jon,
Thank you for compiling this magnificent list of ideas....I haven't yet implemented any of these.

Jo

Should the blog post be from the code you get from Postlets or vFlyers? Will that count or does it have to be an actual post?

Kathy

Hi all,

I am glad you found value from the tips!

Regarding NAR it went very well!!!! I am planning to draft a blog post about it asap.

Kathy, let me look into it and get back to you.

Jon, Many thanks. I might even be able to handle most of this,,, but I'll be calling you if I can't. LOL

JAN

Thank you for the good ideas....I will check on these items.

FEB

Thanks for the information. I put a couple of these to work, however, some of them are not available here North of you in Canada.. Any other ideas??? Please post. Thanks again.

FEB

Thanks for these great ideas. Although I want to put my computer down now I simply can't. I really appreciate the advice!

FEB

Jonathan, Just completed all of your suggestions, thanks for the great tips. I look forward to seeing the results.

Thanks Jonathan, great post and am working on you ideas. All ways find usefull information on AR.

Thank you Jonathan-very appreciative of your sharing your time to provide this great information.

Jon, I got carried away a week ago doing these and forgot to comment. I did some reviews on Yelp and already connected with folks.

Forgot to say thanks.

You are the MAN! I greatly appreciate the ideas and support. I'm truly thankful for the information shared and have already registered on Google Local before even entering this comment - thanks a million

Jonathan - Absolutely the best! You are the best! These are really great! So much thanks I can't even begin to express my thanks. We love the Rain! Bob H

Jonathan

hey thank you thank thank you

i just did a yelp! it was fun!

i will let you know how i make out..i will let you know how i make out ..this is better than going into the office...I learn more here.....Activerain is fantastic.....

oh and did i say thank you

helpfulhannah

I just modified my yelp and google local. thanks for your tip!

Grace Keng Silicon Valley realtor

Jon, did you know that cows are a Hindu prosperity symbol?

And thanks for the tips!

Awesome information. We all love the SEO world...and I've got alot of work to do!!

Thanks for your help.

FEB

Thank you Johnathan for the great information! Can't wait to put it to good use!

I can't believe how many ways there are to network. Thank you for sharing this information. I hope your kindness, and generousity comes back to you ten fold.

Jonathan - Great! Thank you!

FEB

Thanks for sharing these dominating tips. I will be signing up for Active Rain blogs in a day or two!

FEB

Thanks for the tips. I will give them a try.

Jonathan,

I have tried in the past to include active links to my website in my Craigslist ads but Craigslist doesn't allow outgoing links. Has this changed? Or is there something I am missing?

Troy Trumm

Jonathan thanks for the information. These are all probably something that most of us have done done.

Actually not everyone know about this kind of stuff, there are new people coming in all of the time and everyone starts at the beginning and builds from there. Now I have a lot of work to do...

There were a couple that I have not done and just completed them - Thanks for the post.

Jonathan

Thank you for this information and ideas. I'm just starting to work on getting a better presence online. This will be a great start...

Thank you again.

FEB

Jonathan, thank you. I really appreciate all you guys have done.

Thanks Jonathan--

Now all I need to do is find someone who can keep track of all of these and the other great ideas on AR so that I have time to work with all the clients it will generate! ;- )

Great info on the free, basic steps everyone should take to get noticed on the web.

Jonathan,

Really Really good info!! I hate to be the dummie in the crowd but what does SEO stand for?? Thanks, Bill

rockstar - always good to hear from you on this subject. Thanks

Thanks for the tips Jonathan. I will check these out shortly.

Yes, I want to be top cow in my area! Thanks for the tips!

Done! And thanks for the gentle prod (KICK) to get it done!! ;-)

Ann

Thanks for the great tips. I just spent time following ALL your instructions! Hopefully buyers will find me to own in Naples and experience sunsets like this! www.NaplesWave.com/NaplesBlog

Sunset at the Sandpiper Beach in Pelican Bay

Thanks you for your good advice, and thank you for being specific and to the point.

I read this article earlier. Now it's getting better press and everyone is reading it. It's getting harder and harder to maintain a competitive advantage.

FEB

Hi Jonathan,

Great tips! Thank you, I didn't know that some of these even exists. I've just added myself to Yahoo Yellow pages ... hoping that this will help me float up in the rankings.

Best regards,
Mike

I'm going to do these things today. Fun analogy with the cow. Here's another: Happy cows belong to Active Rain!

Thank you so much, I've actually tried a few of these for our company now. Thanks for sharing!

Great info Jonathan! Thanks for sharing. For the person that asked what S-E-O stood for it is "Search Engine Optimization." Its the process of organically improving volume & traffic to your website. I'm sure that there are Rainers that have expertise on this subject matter like Jonathan. But I've definately learned that the only dumb question is the one not asked!

Thanks for the tips Jonathan!

Great and very helpfull tips. Thank you, I'm going to implement them right now.

Jonathan - thanks - great tips. I bookmarked your post and registered my blog already with Google, Yahoo and Yelp...even submitted my other businesses...The rest will have to wait till tomorrow...Yelp looks very interesting! Thanks a bunch...

With smiles,

FEB

great advice .... thanks!

Thanks, Jonathan. I've been away for a while and am going great guns today getting my seo up. I've signed up on Yellow Pages and Yelp.

Johnathan, awesome post and incredible information of which I will use it all!!! Thank you so much for freely sharing the info!!!

FEB

I think you have the greatest picture of anyone I have ever seen on AR! Nice work distinguishing yourself, I love it.... oh and good posts too...

Best,

Amy Boxer

MAR

Holy Cow this is a great post!

I'm on my way to Yelp right now...

Thank you for always sharing your great advice and knowledge.

MAR

Jonathan - Thanks so much for the tips. I can't believe it took me this long to find the post. I'll be sure to get these things going.

MAR

Jonathan... thanks for all of the tips... just registered with the yellow pages!

MAR

I will use this wonderful advice NOW thanks for the tips!

MAY

Thanks for the tips Jonathan,

I'm going to get on it.

MAY

Jonathan:

I had bookmarked this post back in January, and I am finally gettin to it, as I now understand the terms.

I am surprised that I didn't comment before. Today, I will work on all these tips.

Thanks,

Tere

SEP

Hi Jonathan,

Thanks for the tips and sharing. I'm going to get on it!

SEP

Hi Jonathan~ Thanks for sharing this with all of us. I am going to go and do those that haven't been done yet!

OCT

Thanks I missed a few of these.

OCT

HI Jonathan - The learning never stops for me here on Active Rain. Thanks for your willingness to share. I need all the help I can get.

That's a keeper, thanks!

Jonathan, Thanks for the handy tips. I'll bookmark for reference.

OCT

Jonathan, these are great tips. I find so many old school agents do not have a clue about this kind of SEO.

NOV

Great ideas,

Not exactly sure how to post a blog to yelp, but I joined and I think I am only one of a few. Thanks for being such a great resource.

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