3 Simple Steps for Geo Targeting Your Web Page

Posted by Justin Smith at 8 May, 2009, 2:37 am

There are alot of these types of tips online, but I’ve found that many of them are outdated or just plain don’t work. These 3 steps are proven tactics that I’ve used to help small businesses rank better for local search terms.

Before you dive in, remember that a site that targets local customers can be a huge advantage. When you use your physical address freely on your website, it allows the search engines to help you place more emphasis on the searchers in your local area.

If you have multiple addresses, I highly recommend that you create a unique page for each of those addresses, and make it a quality landing page for customers coming directly to that page. You also want to make sure you reference these specific pages when submitting a local business listing to search engines.

As always, let me know if you have any questions, and feel free to share and link to this post!

1. Put Your Address in HCard Format (micro formats)

If you aren’t familiar with this, click here first. It does require a bit of mucking around in the html, but you can simply use the code below as a guideline. Just copy and paste it into your site and replace the location details. This will basically allow the search engines to parse your address when they crawl the page you place it on and correspond it with your local listing (assuming you have one). If you don’t, hang your head in shame, and then follow this link to get added.

<div class="vcard">
  <a class="fn org url" href="http://www.commerce.net/">CommerceNet</a>
  <div class="adr">
    <span class="type">Work</span>:
    <div class="street-address">169 University Avenue</div>
    <span class="locality">Palo Alto</span>,
    <abbr class="region" title="California">CA</abbr>  
    <span class="postal-code">94301</span>
    <div class="country-name">USA</div>
  </div>
  <div class="tel">
   <span class="type">Work</span> +1-650-289-4040
  </div>
  <div class="tel">
    <span class="type">Fax</span> +1-650-289-4041
  </div>
  <div>Email:
   <span class="email">info@commerce.net</span>
  </div>
</div>

2. Put Your Address Info in the Meta Section

This is another piece of code that you can simply copy and paste and fill in the proper information. It needs to be placed in the head section of the code for the page you want it on (normally the home page if your business only has one address). I usually place my right below the title tag. If you need help knowing what to place in the ICBM section, try this link.

    <meta name=“country” content=“USA, United States, United States Of America, America”>
    <meta name=“ICBM” content=“39.7114, -104.8192″>
    <meta name=“geography” content=“14501 E Alameda Ave Ste 1, Aurora, CO, 80012″>
    <meta name=“DC.title” content=“Aurora Counseling Center”>
    <meta name=“zipcode” content=“80012″>
    <meta name=“description” content=“Aurora Counseling Center at 14501 E Alameda Ave Ste 1, Aurora, CO  80012″>
    <meta name=“state” content=“CO”>
    <meta name=“keywords” content=“Aurora Counseling Center, reviews, ratings, recommendations, best, worst, map, directions, hours, Community &amp; Social Services, Counseling, denver, Directory &amp; Services, social services”>
    <meta name=“city” content=“Aurora”>

    <meta name=“postalcode” content=“80012″>
    <meta name=“address” content=“14501 E Alameda Ave Ste 1, Aurora, CO, 80012″>

3. Submit Your Address & Business Listing To IYP’s

IYP stands for Internet Yellow Pages. These sites are great to submit to when you want to build up some basic links, but more importantly, they will help solidify a strong listing on the sites that really matter like Google and Yahoo Local. When Google Bot sees a large recurrence of the same address and lots of references to the web page associated with that physical address, it can really help to boost local rankings. If you’ve never submitted your business listing to an IYP before, start with Google & Yahoo, then move on to InfoUSA (they help populate over 25 websites). TIP: keep all of your listings very consistent, and if you have more than one address, make sure to link to the specific page on your website that references that address.

Category : Local Search Topics

Comments

Riera Rossello May 8, 2009

Thank you very much about these interesting tips. As an estate agent specialized in renting apartments and based in the island of Menorca (Spain), that is, a little bit away from where the action takes place, internet is a great tool to be localized and so people can find us. We will take some of your recommendations for our web page.

Once more, thankyou very much…

kit May 18, 2009

Thank you for the information. I am not exactly sure how to insert this info into my wordpress blog. Any info on this would be greatly appreciated.
Kit

Promotional Products May 26, 2009

Thanks for these tips, submitting to IYP’s is a great idea. I’ve have overlooked this in the past.

Alfred June 1, 2009

Wow. I had no idea there were so many different types of metatags. How useful are they nowadays though? I heard most of the major search engines don’t really look at them anymore.

smith June 25, 2009

These three tips are of great importance in the search engine ranking and I think if they are implemented in a good way to make your web business more popular among masses. Thanks for sharing these tips and please continue this great work.

Staten Island Real Estate Agent November 13, 2009