Get Local with Yahoo! Local

A useful marketing tip for those serving local communities and visitors is to submit their business details to Yahoo! Local. It is an initiative from Yahoo to help their users find things they need in their neighbourhood.

Yahoo! Local supplies the names and numbers of local services and businesses and displays information related to them. Its a kind of 'Yahoo! Yellow Pages'. As Yahoo! Local evolves, it hopes to provide expanded information to make its search results more comprehensive.

To try it out click on the "Local" tab at the top of yahoo.co.uk or just type www.uk.local.yahoo.com into the address bar of your browser.

Enter a search term like Website Design in the 'Search for:' field and Hastings in the 'Location:' field.

Importantly the top results displayed on Yahoo! Local will also appear above the organic results in the main Yahoo! results listings if a geographic reference is entered. Try the search phrase website design hastings on the main Yahoo! website for example.

Yahoo! gets its classified information from Infoserve Group plc who also manage Yahoo! Local’s sponsored advertising.

Now this means that once you have submitted your business to Yahoo! Local you may well get a call from an Infoserve employee offering to set up a sponsored listing for you. A sponsored listing will cost you if it is used to reach your website.

You ARE NOT obliged to take a sponsored listing although it may be something that interests you. I found my their sales pitch more educational and less hard sell. If you can spare the time, see if you can gleam any tips and suggestions. I learned for example that their are more searches on the term Website Design East Sussex than Website Design South East and so I have tweaked our website optimisation for east sussex accordingly.

To get your business into Yahoo! Local complete this simple form.

Google's Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide

Yesterday Google posted a handy 'Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide' on their Webmaster Central Blog.

It is a clearly written introduction to the 'Dos and Don'ts' of optimizing your website for the search engines. It uses examples for each of its key points drawn from a fictitious website.

Most of it will be familiar to those of us creating web sites on a day to day basis but it does draw attention to one or two recent Google initiatives that look useful.

I've already added 404 widget, still an experimental feature, to the Alpha State custom 404 page. Its yet another feature available through Google Webmaster Tools.

Its greatest value though is as an introduction to the subject for the website owner as it stresses the importance of carefully written Page Titles, Meta Descriptions, Headings and the need to generate compelling content, logically presented. It is required reading!

In Our October 2008 Newsletter

Following frantic selling on the financial markets at the end of October we included three items in our most recent newsletter that we think will help our clients sell their products and services in the coming months!

Search Engine Performance and Submission to Google
Google has introduced Webmaster Tools giving you an insight into how Google sees your site. This is the first step towards improving your site's performance on Google.
Read more about Google Webmaster Tools

Article: Copywriting for Search Engines
Search engines look for keywords in various places on the page such as title, headings and body copy. Consequently, following the guidelines in our article, 'Copywriting for Search Engines', can improve your website's performance.
Read more about Copywriting for Search Engines

E-mailing Newsletters to Clients
Where clients are likely to respond well to regular contact about your products or services, email newsletters are an excellent way to develop client relationships.

You can communicate your messages quickly, cheaply and tailored to specific types of customer.

Reporting tools offer valuable information on customer response to the mailshot including who opened the email and the links followed.
Read more about E-mailing Newsletters to Clients


Read the full newsletter in full.