Local search marketing & social media experimentation

I’m running a few experiments that some of you may be interested in. The first is in regards to getting your business to rank well for local or regional searches. Searches like “website development + Bozeman, MT“. Currently, Manifest Creative ranks 5th for this keyword search on Google.com.

Following the excellent advice of search marketing guru Rae Hoffman, in her excellent post entitled “Before You Launch that Local Small Business Website“, I’ve begun to register our website with each of the free directories that she recommends. I’ll keep each of you posted on the final results, both from a rankings and web traffic standpoint.

Due to the fact that we’ve not created any new content, nor have we optimized any of our pages for these keywords, here is what I suspect will happen:
1) No significant improvement for Google search engine ranking.
2) Slight increase in web traffic.
3) Better inclusion in “local” search results across all search engines.

Many of the websites that I registered with feed other search engines such as Ask.com and Lycos.com with local/regional search engine results. The local results are the listings that are displayed before the traditional results when you search with a regional keyword (see screenshot below). Many search engines also include a map.

So why is this important? Many of us are selling our products, services or other goods to others within our own locales. Many internet users are getting more specific about what they search for. Most of us know that if we search Google.com for “car dealerships“, we’re not likely to find what we seek. However, if we search for “car dealerships in Bozeman, MT” we’re much more likely to find relevant results.

Additionally, since these local results are often found above the traditional organic search results,  they are even more valuable for their top of mind awareness. Besides, since back-links are one of the most important aspects of search engine optimization, it is never a bad idea to have an additional link back to your website.

One last experiment – one that you can help with!

I’ve submitted the Western Art & Architecture magazine article “Green By Design” to a social bookmarking website called Digg.com. For those of you unfamiliar with the site, the general idea is that you submit a link or story that you like. Others who like the article you’ve submitted Digg it as well – thus voting for it. The more Diggs a page receives, the higher in the rankings it moves – generating more website visits.

I am hoping that each of you will take just a moment to visit the following address, and if necessary, register with Digg.com to vote for this article. When you’re on the Digg.com website, you can see how many times it’s been dugg by looking at the icon to the left of the headline. Feel free to leave a comment about the article too on the Digg website – that way I’ll know to add you to my friends list!

Here’s the link:
http://digg.com/environment/Green_by_Design_2

I’ll report back to each of you to tell you about the results, and perhaps we’ll all learn a thing or two about the power of social media!