Local search optimization is often overlooked by local business owners when starting an SEO campaign. However if you have this in mind when starting out you just may find that the results may surpass the general SEO work done your website. Not that your websites general SEO work should not be done. It's still very critical especially if you are in a competitive market.

Local search engine optimization is a process which a businesses local listings are optimized to rank high in the local search results. As more and more people perform local searches the number of these searches keep growing on the internet and since most people these days have phones with search capabilities that are GPS based. It is becoming more and more important that businesses optimize their local listings to rank high in the local search results.

A locally focused campaign should tie in with your general SEO work and combine optimized content, link building, blogging, optimized title tags and descriptions as well as focused keywords and keyword phrases. The aim of local Search engine optimization is usually to improve online visibility. This approach will deliver a very much far better ROI and be much more helpful to a local business.

Local SEO will often show results in a much shorter time period than results from a general SEO campaign. Especially if your competition has not caught on yet. Be warned though many business are doing local SEO and the competition is heating up. Now is the time to act with a local search campaign. If you have not done so yet at the very least go and claim you business on google, yahoo and bing.
Check out TurnUp Local for the best local search optimization.

Soon many small business owners will be asking themselves. Which is more important a Google Places Page or a Facebook Page? The smart move for now is both. If your a small business owner and just starting out it's much easier to just claim your Google Places Page to get started.  However if you want to engage your customers you will need a Facebook Page, these pages are now indexed by Google too. Both now provide a location based application where users can find local small businesses, but which one is going to win out in the location battle? Good question … Even Twitter now has a location option and with others like Foursquare and Booyah one thing is for sure it's all about location, location, location.

Both Google and Facebook's location services are organizing information based on location that they will provide for their users at the click of a button. Both are advising businesses to advertise with them to target the businesses local audience using online ads and real-time results right to a users mobile device. This use to be Google's game but recently Facebook been getting into the action, in a big way.

With the recent launch of Facebook Places it places them squarely in competition with Google. Google was the king of selling relevant ads with search results. Now Google faces a huge challenge in keeping it's market share as Facebook can now pull information on friends, pages, groups to find relevant content for it's users and advertisers. One more little thing to throw into the mix is that Facebook's 500 million users are invisible to Google. It's not like Google has not been on Facebook's heals trying to develop it's own social service however Facebook just has quite a jump on them.

Since both are after the advertising dollar, the competition is heating up between the two. Google may have the upper hand for now with more than $35 billion a year being spent by small businesses on Google advertising. This competition between the two is just getting started. Both are saying it's a big market place and there is room for both but who really believes that.

There is a bit of a twist that Facebook brings to the table. Facebook has taken a page from the other mobile applications out there that are GPS based and allow users to check in and see businesses around them. This allows the user to notify friends when they arrive, leave comments on service, food and can also show adverts from local businesses in the area.

Google on the other hand puts the control of the content the user can see in the business owners hands by letting them claim their business and create a Google Places Page. Business owners can add a description, hours of operation, coupons, photos, videos and control what the end user see. Of course Google knows where the visitors to the pages are from and they too can run advertisements of services based on location.

With billions of local searches being done a month on Google  and Facebook already having 500 million users there is little question the location competition in going to something to keep an eye on in the future.

If your business wants to take advantage of these exciting times contact us ... [click here]