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Have you seen the changes Google has made in its search results display lately? You’ve probably seen the top ten local results before if you’ve ever searched for something with a geographical indicator, like: “contractor Pasadena” or “dentist San Francisco.”  Google would know you were looking for a local result and place the top ten “Local Business Results” up at the top of your page.

Now all you have to do is enter a generic term like “contractor” and Google will display the local listings automatically, like this:

What does this mean for you? This means that any business that ranks well locally now has a chance of getting on the first page for general search terms, and will get more exposure/traffic. And those users who couldn’t find you because they didn’t know they had to enter geographic modifiers now no longer have to learn how. Local results will display automatically.

How do you take advantage of local search? One easy way is to go to Google’s Local Business Center and get a free business listing. Help Google find you and categorize your business correctly. You can also use geographical indicators as keywords in your code, content, titles, etc. [Click here to read more about keyword placement]. Truthfully, it will be hard to get listed in the top ten for “attorney San Francisco,” but the more specific you are in your choice of keywords (“maritime attorney San Francisco”), the better your chances are for getting relevant traffic to your website.

We’ve said it before – websites are more than just pretty pictures. In order for your site to be effective, major search engines like Google and Yahoo need to include you when they display results for your type of product or service.

So what exactly do Google and Yahoo want? The same thing you do when you’re looking for something on the internet. Google and Yahoo want to deliver the most relevant results to the people using their service. Serving up consistently relevant results encourages people to come back to their site because they know they’ll be able to find exactly what they want quickly.

Here’s how it works: search engines are constantly sending out automated agents, “search bots,” to crawl websites. These agents go to each page of a website to read the text – to gather the words. The search engine takes into account how many times the words are used, where they are used (high up on the page or as the last sentence) and whether the words are used as page titles, content headings, as links, or as names of images. It carries all of the information back and stores it in a giant database.

Search engines also read behind-the-scenes text – the code that users can’t see. However, because of misuse early on (webmasters entering text that had nothing to do with their product or service just to attract traffic), search engines don’t consider these items (such as keywords, descriptions) to be any more important than any other text.

Search engines also gather information on how many other websites are linking to your website – and the more “important” those websites are, the higher the priority you’ll receive when it comes time to displaying results. In other words, a link from a well-known, highly-visited website such as hp.com will give you more priority than a link from a local blog that receives only a few visitors a week.

The above, in a nutshell, is how a search engine decides what to display in its results. Each search engine uses slightly different methods (algorithms) to determine display results. Only those who work at Google or Yahoo really know the details (it is after all, the secret to their success), but knowing the above and following some simple guidelines regarding keywords and their placement can really improve your online performance.

Last time, we talked about the basics of writing content to help attract relevant traffic to our site. Now that you’ve put some thought into your keywords and phrases, where should they go?

text: You’ve heard it before, “content is king.” If your keywords and phrases aren’t in your content (that’s the text on your pages), then a search engine will think that those words aren’t important for your site and won’t rank you highly for them.

title tag: These words are what appear at the top of a user’s browser when they view a web page. The title tag is one of the most important places (to a search engine) to place your keywords.

header tags: Your content probably has a layout designed to sell your product or communicate your message, with important topics headlined or emphasized. Similarly, you can add labels in your code to help search engines understand your content. Search engines see headings which are labeled as <h1> as being the most important, and <h2> as the second-most important and so on.

anchor tags: Anchor tags are the words that you use to link to your (or others’) web pages.

alt tags: Alt tags are used to label graphics/images. They appear in place of the image when a user has their graphics turned off, or when the graphics take time to load or if someone is using an assistive device to surf the web.

other meta tags: The meta “keywords” tag can be used to highlight important terms within your content – the ones that should bring up your web pages when a user enters them in a search box. The meta “description” tag gives a search engine the words that you would like to be displayed when you come up in its results. A search engine may index up to 250 characters, although fewer characters may be displayed in the results.

Note that different search engines display results in different ways, so at best, these tags can influence results displays only in the search engines that support them.

focus on what’s important

No matter how much research you do on keywords and their placement, don’t forget that, first and foremost, you’re writing for your clients and prospects! Use keywords when you can, but keep your writing natural and appealing to your target audience.

Got a new website or looking to develop one soon? Great!! Now…if only your customers could find it on Google or Yahoo. To attract good traffic to your site, you’ll need great content and to do some homework on keywords. Keywords are those words (or phrases) that your potential customers are typing into that search box to find something on the internet. Here are some steps you can take to make sure your content matches up with what your customers are looking for:

speak their language

Put yourself in your customers’ shoes. Are your customers looking for “low fares” or are they looking for “cheap flights”; for “property insurance” or “home insurance”? Use the words your customers would use, rather than industry jargon, and you’ll stand a better chance of getting them to your website.

understand their concerns

When people shop on the internet, they might be looking for general information as well as for specific products. What questions are they likely to ask (and that your product or service can help them answer)? What problem are they trying to solve? Again, put yourself in their shoes: along with looking for “financial planning services,” some customers might instead ask “how to retire early.”

make a list

Start your list of keywords by answering the questions above, and, if it makes sense, get local. If you sell to a specific region, adding that region’s name to your phrase can help get more focused results. For instance, “IT support” gets thousands of searches every day, but if you live in LA, “IT support Los Angeles” is likely to get your site more relevant traffic.

Need more help generating keywords? Try Google’s free keyword tool to get your creative juices flowing!

prioritize

Once you’ve got a good list, prioritize the items according to what is most relevant to your product or service and, last, incorporate them into your website.