Rank for different areas using Local Search Engine Optimisation

Local Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is critical for many businesses now. Basically any business who service clients in a particular geographical location. 

Many people now add city and regions to their searches for local services ie "web designer eastbourne", "builder in brighton"... 

By locally optimising your website, you have a chance of being on the first page for those queries / searches. If you haven't optimised for your local areas at all, you will have no chance whatsoever. 

NAP (Name, Address and Phone number) consistency

So NAP consistency across the web is of high importance. We're basically talking about making sure your name, address and phone number is the same everywhere.

This includes the information itself but also the formatting. For instance, if the address on your website is 32 Baker Street, Suite 1 -  you wouldn’t want it appearing as 32 Baker St., #1 elsewhere on the web.

This should be kept in mind when creating social network profiles, directory listings, citations generally or your own website. A citation is a mention of your business somewhere on the web that includes your NAP.

This consistency will help Google build the trustworthiness of your business and its online presence.

Personally We copy the format that is used for the Google business page, more on that later.

Local SEO on your website

To give our website a shot at coming up in Google when people perform a local search, we need to have some relevant content. The obvious route to go is to create a page for each area that you wish to serve. 

Matt Cutts, head of Google spam, wrote "If you want your store pages to be found, it’s best to have a unique, easily crawlable url for each store." So that is what we do, we have a unique page for each area we wish to target. 

There is also something known as structured data markup that your webmaster can add to your website. This allows us to tell Google clearly that we are a local business. Including details like opening hours, logo and NAP for example.

You can also add a piece of code that tells Google the address of your Google+ business page, helping to verify authenticity. 

​Directory listings

Directory listings are great for SEO as long as it is not a spammy directory of course. You don't want to be associated with anything spammy or low quality. 

I would also be aware that some of them will generate some junk mail and sales calls. I guess some of them come as a result of being found by such companies.

The first directory type site We always get on is the Google My Business. This is how you literally get on the map at Google. There is also Bing Places for business.

We obviously provide local SEO services and can be contacted through the website,