Local Small Business SEO - A Case Study In Edinburgh

The city of Edinburgh in Scotland has been the home of art and science for centuries. It is the second largest city in Scotland. Local search engine optimisation is also an art and science. It is fairly easy to learn, but difficult to master. The SEO Consultant Service is an Edinburgh SEO company, but we help clients all over the world get top rankings in Google. In this article will look at how any small business can start competing with larger players in the field. Here is a case study for a small business based in Edinburgh where SEO local business strategies has help to get a high Google ranking. Although the principles we look at are in Edinburgh SEO strategy will work in city in the world. Before we look at our 10 top tips for local SEO, what should you, as a small business owner, be looking for if you are wanting to hire one of the many SEO agencies for search engine optimisation? You need to find a SEO company who specialises in increasing your online presence and converting visitors into new clients. Your SEO specialist should have working knowledge of the local marketing environment and who will also be able to provide you with some SEO tips and search engine optimisation training. Here are the 10 steps to take for a local SEO strategy. We used these SEO strategies for small business SEO Edinburgh to target the local market and increase their rankings. 1. What Is Your Target Audience? If you are planning to sell souvenirs of, say Edinburgh castle, then there is no point targeting people who are interested in buying opera tickets. You also need to work out if these potential website visitors are there just to browse, are they going to buy, and are they willing to spend a lot. Pick keyword terms that are linked to your service, and that will convert well into sales. Keywords that are connected to reviews are good, because although it may seem like someone is researching, because they are looking for product reviews it means that they are looking to buy. 2. Optimise Page Titles. The title of your page is one of the most important element of on page SEO strategies. How does this help your local SEO? In when someone searches for something in Google, this will be the blue links. Your page title tells the search engines a lot and it will also entice potential customers to click through to your site.This will take some experience to do it well. That is why it is good to enlist the help of an SEO specialist. How can this help? If your are using SEO for a business in Edinburgh to rank well in the search engines, then it is good that in your title will be the word 'Edinburgh'. So for example, you could use "Edinburgh Carpet Cleaners" as a page title. Here you are incorporating both your location and your top keyword if you own a carpet cleaning site. This will help visitors know that your are in their locality. It is also a factor that will help the search engines list you for searches in the Edinburgh area.This factor isn't something that you have to be too concerned with. They can be changed later on and what's more - Google will notice these changes quickly. 3. Use Unique Page Titles. One of the biggest mistake to make is to use similar page titles for your site. Try to use the main keywords that you are trying to rank for. It is also important that all of the pages on your site have unique page titles. If not what will happen is that you will have many pages all competing against each other. You don't want to be competing against yourself! So take some time to plan the site properly. Think of what would be good page titles and use different keywords in them. For our case study, we helped a cleaning company in the Edinburgh area. Page titles were created "Window Cleaners Edinburgh", "Top Cleaning Professionals Edinburgh" etc.Your keywords are also your local search keywords like your town, products and even your name.More on page SEO factors will be to use your to tags properly. 4. Use Internal Links. You want the search engines to be able to find their way around your site. Think how difficult it would be to walk around a city like Edinburgh if there were no sign posts or if you didn't have a map. Links from your homepage to other pages on your site act as sign posts that search engines can use to rank your pages. You need to work out what are the main pages that you want to rank for and then link to these pages. Then use relevant keywords to link to these pages. For example, to rank a page for "Edinburgh builders" use the word "Edinburgh builiders" in the text that links to that page. Remember to use keyword diversity to make it look more natural. So don't just use anchor text keywords, but other words like "contact us" or "click here". 5. Use Your Contact Details On Every Page. Try to use your address and telephone number on each page on your website. This is good for users (remember that not everyone will land on your site on the homepage). If your business has offices or branches in many locations, then try to have a different page for each location. Then create the proper links and menus to these from your homepage. 6. Register Your Small Business On Google Places. This is so important because Google is promoting businesses that are listed on Google places. This is perfect for a local SEO strategy. Just think, Google will show your small business location on a map and also provide driving, public transport and walking directions to get there. There are also many other business directories that you can list your business for free. 7. Make a Video. This could be just a quick description of your small business. You can use a digital camera on a small tripod to record yourself. You could use Microsoft PowerPoint to create some slides and then use Microsoft movie maker to put them together. This can be a very effective way to promote your business. Then when you have this done, upload it to youTube. Then remember to use your keywords (e.g. "Best Window Cleaner in Edinburgh") 8. Blog On Your Site. Maybe your first reaction will be aaargh - not a blog. You can ask your web design developer to add a blog to your site. This is a great way to add new and regular content to your site - and it's essential for a long-term local SEO strategy. If you can't add a blog to your site then you can set up a blog with wordpress.com or blogger.com and then link back to your site. Don't be tempted to put in lots of links from your blog back to your main site. With the recent Google Penguin update, this type of SEo strategy can actually damage your website rankings. Use the maximum 2 links, and have only one anchor text link and a brand link (e.g. this starts with www. then your site title) or a generic link (e.g. "click here"). You don't have to write a big long article. It can be just a short paragraph of some relevant information using your keywords which link back to your homepage. So, in our case study we wrote some blogs on why that Edinburgh based window cleaning firm will deliver great results. Then have 2 links in the blog with your website and anchor text. 9. Resolve Technical Issues. If you have deleted pages without setting up a redirect you could have technical issues that will adversely affect your Google ranking. If this is so then you need to ask your web designer to set up a '301 redirect' this will mean if that anyone clicks on a link that is no longer there then they will be re-directed to a page on your site that is current. So never delete a page without setting up this redirect. A good way to check your site is to sign up to Google Webmaster Tools. 10. Get Back Links (Inbound Links). One of the most important things that any professional SEO consultant will tell you is that backlinks are so important. Google views these as positive referrals to your site and then ranks you accordingly. But, one word of warning: never go out an purchase 100s of backlinks. This is something that has to be done over time and you need to get backlinks for good authority sites. This means to get links from other websites that are in the same speciality as you. A professional SEO consultant will be able to help you with this. In our case study, the company had hired a SEO consultant who was using blackhat SEO strategies. They were just buying links and this actually had a negative impact on the site. If you follow these 10 easy steps then you will be able to use local SEO strategy services to greatly increase the volume of traffic to your site. Although we have looked at an example of how SEO for businesses in Edinburgh can be used effectively, the same principles still hold true for SEO strategy in any city in the world. So if you want your small business to prosper online, then make sure that you optimise your site for your local audience. For more information on SEO Edinburgh for small businesses then please visit http://theseoconsultantservice.com. TheSEOConsultantService.com, 64 Moubray Grove, South Queensferry, Edinburgh, EH30 9PD