The other day we spoke about the need for a website, but this is only one step. Once you website is up, you need to be found by your customers. Google is a big part of this, but for a local business, you should also focus on regional search engines (where it makes sense, of course). It does not end there, however. Another concept to be aware of is something called Geo Targeting. In this respect, we are talking about Geo Targeting search results for potential customers in search engines, not tailoring content for people that arrive at your site.
So what do we mean by “Geo Targeting Search Results”? This is the art of making sure, if someone searched “Cakes in Toronto” or “Bagels in Montreal” your website is near the top in Google, Yahoo! and Live.
Below is a quick cheat sheet on the three major search engines, and how to be found by your local customers:
Google: Google, does not use/read/respect Geo-Tags (more on that later). In Google, there are two ways to get into local search. The first is to add your business to Google Local. The second way is via Google Webmaster Tools, but note: ” You can only use this feature for sites with a neutral top-level domain, such as .com or .org. Country-specific domains, such as .ie or .fr, are already associated with a country or region.”
MSN Live: According to Live Search, they use “information such as the website’s IP address (A specific numeric address for a computer on a network, such as the Internet.) and the country or region code top-level domain to determine a website’s market and country or region. ” There is no way to set the target location as in Google in Live Webmaster Tools, but you can add a local business listing. If you want to Geo Target your site, without creating a listing, there is a meta-tag trick. It involves simply adding the following in the header <meta http-equiv="content-language" content="en-CA" /> and just change “en-ca” to the correct paring. The complete list is here.
Yahoo!: You can add your business to Yahoo! Local. Yahoo!, like live is focused on the domain you are hosting.
Here is Mark8t’s Geo Targeting Search Results Cheat Sheet, this is what you should know when it comes to focus on when Geo Targeting search results:
- Top-level domain (TLD): This is the country to which your domain is located. Fro example, if you site is a “.FR”, you will show up more for searchers in France. You could in many cases have you site replicated and translated on three different country domains without issue, as recently noted from SMX Sydney.
- Server location: For domains that are not country-specific (such as .com), search engines use the geographic location of the server where the site is hosted to determine country.
- Google Webmaster Tools setting: There is an option for specifying the geographic location of a site.
- Location of incoming links: Where are the sites linking into you? If 90% are in Canada, the search engines will make an assumption.
- Language of pages: Set the meta data and character encoding as appropriately as you can. It is not foolproof, but better than nothing.
- Address: Include you address on the page, preferable the main page. Ensure you site is listed in the search engine’s local index. Google Local, Live Local and Yahoo! Local.
- Meta Tags are important. Focus on the title, keywords and description to tell users where you are.
Now, when it comes to Meta Tags, there is one we have not talked about and that is Geo Tags. See below an example:
[ META NAME=”geo.position” CONTENT=” 40.7; -74″ ]
[ META NAME=”geo.country” CONTENT=”US” ]
[ META NAME=”geo.placename” CONTENT=”New York City” ]
Sure they look lovely and useful, but the truth is they are not being read/used by any of the search engines. At least, according to their documentation. You can add the Geo Tags easily enough (with this site), so it does not hurt to have them. Nevertheless, there is no need and no guarantee that it helps in search result GEO Targeting. Another type of Geo Tag is the hCard Microformat (make one here), which some claim works for search targeting, although once again there is no evidence from the search engine companies themselves.
In the end, the best way to make sure someone from you city finds you, is having the right content on the page (ie Your Address), the correct Meta Tags (title, keyword, description) and a Top Level Domain in your country.
Help My Customers Find Me: Geo Tags and Geo Targeting is a post from: Mark8t: Marketing And More