I love the yellow pages. They are good for so many things. Today, I stumbled upon yet another amazing use for my local directory…

…kindling for my fireplace!

The thin and cheap paper ignites quicker than newspaper, and the flames give off an nice little colored glow from the ink. Now don’t get me wrong.  7 years ago I was a firm believer in Yellow Page advertising. Which was a good thing since I made my living selling yellow page advertising. I was one of the best sales reps in our office because I believed in the power of “directional advertising” to impact a small businesses bottom line. Directional advertising is the form of advertising that consumers seek out when they are ready to make a purchase. As we used to say to our clients, it brings buyers and sellers together at the perfect moment…when they have money in hand and seeking out a particular service. And woe to you, Mrs. Landscaper, or Mr. Plumber, if you were not advertising in the yellow pages. Because that is how many consumers used to make their buying decisions.

Creative advertising on the other hand, like the newspaper, magazines, billboards, direct mail etc., was and still is a somewhat viable medium but less and less so. Advertising in the newspaper and hoping for a high return on investment is like flushing a $20 bill down the toilet and hoping to see $50 come out of the kitchen faucet. Possible…but not likely.

As a business owner, you’d almost be better off taking the $1,000 plus dollars you would spend in the yellow pages or newspaper and going to Vegas for the weekend. At least you’d have a shot at ROI, and at the outside you’d enjoy a nice seafood buffet.

There were a lot of jokes about the yellow pages that I encountered a few years ago when I was a true believer. One common line was “…yeah I use the yellow pages – FOR A DOORSTOP! Ha ha ha.” Well today you couldn’t even say that. Directories these days are so light on advertising and have gotten so thin that the door would simply swing right over the top of  the book – forget about being a door stopper. It makes a better drink coaster.

Which brings me back to my original thought. It’s raining and cold here in Southern California today. A perfect time to light up my fireplace and enjoy the closest thing to “winter” that we get here in the land of 70 and sunny. As I ripped a few pages from the restaurant section to toss under the easy log I was reminded of the debt we owe as marketing agencies to the yellow pages.

Indebted to the yellow pages you say? Surely a sacrilege coming from a digital company! Not so. You see, directional advertising is still directional advertising. Whether it’s in a faded out directory, or the online screen of the Google search engine. Savvy consumers still want quick answers to their buying questions and thank goodness a viable medium has arisen to take the place of the yellow pages: Local Search Engine Marketing. Consumers connect with Google, Yahoo! and Bing when they are searching for a local restaurant, a plumber, a landscaper, or an auto repair shop. It’s fast, it’s easy, and you can even do it on your mobile phone.

So, the question is… will you Mr. Business Owner, be there when your next potential loyal customer is searching? Or will your competition get the business because they were savvy enough to see the value in paying $1.56 for  a lead as opposed to $75.56 for a lead? Will you get the business, or will your competitor get the business because they saw the value in  optimizing their website to rank well in the free search engine listings?

Something to ponder for sure. And speaking of pondering, my dying fireplace is calling. Need more restaurant pages.

STEP #1
Finding Keywords That Are Relevant To Your Business

Keywords are what search engines look for when deciding if your website is relevant to a particular search.

When a local customer does a search for a product or service that you sell, automated programs called “robots” or “spiders” scour the entire web looking for text words or phrases that match the inquiry. In a fraction of a second, the results are then displayed in the order that the search engine thinks are the most relevant, or most popular.

Finding Your Keywords

So how do you find out what “keywords” the search engines are looking for? There are many sophisticated software programs for finding the right keywords.

One simple and FREE way to find out is by visiting the Google AdWords website,  http://adwords.google.com  (no www.) where you can simply type in a word or phrase that is relevant to your business (beauty salon, auto repair, plumber, jeweler, etc.).

Then, Google will show you what keywords were typed in over the last 90 days by people searching for what you sell – starting with the most popular words at the top.

You can then pick the keywords that you want and download them as a Microsoft Excel, or Plain Text document in order to use them in your website. Having this knowledge will enable you to complete the next 4 steps:

2.    Choosing The Right Page Title
3.    Keyword Insertion
4.    Adding A Relevant Description
5.    Writing The Right Copy

STEP #3
Keyword Insertion

Now the fun part – and also the simplest! You are going to take the keywords that you download from Google AdWords, and copy them into your page code.

Good Copy Is Essential (more on this in step #5)

I’m assuming that you’ve already done careful planning as to how your web page is worded. While this step is beyond the scope of this document, I want to touch on why this is important. After search engines scan your Page Title, they will look for the Keywords section of your document to look for a match to the customer inquiry.  But wait – are the same keywords strategically located in the body of the text on your web page?

For example, you are selling landscaping services and have inserted landscaping keywords into your page code.  But, if the page copy is completely irrelevant to landscaping services, or does not contain the words “landscaping services” then the search engine will make the comparison, and judge your page irrelevant to the search. So – make sure you write your page copy using as many keywords as possible!

How To Do It Yourself

If you used Dreamweaver to build your site, open up your page and switch to “code view”.  Unlike the “Page Title” tag, there is no “Keywords” tag in your page by default. So you have to create it. Creating this line of code right below the “Page Title” tag is just fine. Just be sure it appears before the closing “Head” (</head>) tag. Here is the code:

<meta name=”keywords” content=”your keywords here” />

Other website programs may  also offer an easy way to do this.

That’s it! Easy enough, right? Now, let’s move on to step #4…

Your local business website can be a powerful tool to attract new customers. But are they finding your website when they are searching? Research shows that up to 81% of local customers are using search engines to find local products and services.
If your website is not properly optimized to appear in the search engine results, then you could be losing out on a lot of business! Fortunately, Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is not a “secret science” that one cannot figure out.
The five steps we outline here are simple tweaks that you can make to your website TODAY that can DRAMATICALLY improve your website’s popularity with Google and other search engines.

Disclaimer (you knew this was coming!)

While these steps are simple and practical, they are just the beginning of a larger process. Search Engine Optimization can be tedious and complicated, and it must be an ongoing process. This overview is intended to give you, the local business owner, the few first steps to take and is by no means exhaustive.

We’re also assuming that you have a website and some sort of access and ability to make modifications to it. (If not, call us!)

Put Your Keywords To Work

The first thing you must do is choose the top 4 or 5 keywords, and place them in your Page Title.  This is the phrase you see at the very top left of the browser whenever you visit a web page.

If you do just this one step, and nothing else in your SEO makeover, then you’ve done more than about 90% of local businesses in your area. Why? Because most business owners simply are not aware of what an impact having keywords in your Page Title can be. It is the first thing that search engines look for when they scour the web. (We’ll illustrate this in step# 4).
As I have surfed the web looking at local San Gabriel Valley websites, I have been AMAZED at how many businesses have websites with a Page Title like “Bob’s Plumbing” or “ABC Landscaping”. This tells a search engine nothing about your website.

Instead, the Page Title should be something like: “Plumbers San Gabriel Valley, Plumbers Monrovia, Plumbers Glendora, Plumbing Services Covina” , or whatever area you are targeting.  This is how your customers are searching online. They choose a combination of the type of service, and then the area in which they live.

Warning!

Be careful not to overdo this. Some companies have tried inserting up to 50 + words and phrases in their Page Titles thinking that would make them more competitive. Search engines got wise to this some time ago, and now they will just ignore your Page Title, or only read the first few words if they see this. Try to limit the Page Title to 10-15 words or phrases.

How To Do It Yourself

If you used Dreamweaver to build your site, open up your page and switch to “code view”.  At the top of the page you’ll see something like this: <title>Untitled Document</title>. Insert your Page Title here, with no more than 7-10  top keywords that describe your business. Be sure to include the local area(s) that you are targeting, and don’t use more than 72 characters total – or you will dilute the effectiveness of your most important keywords.