Here is a great article on local search from the Daily SEO Blog. http://tiny.cc/ysyjy This is a must-read article if you are in the process of, or thinking about optimizing your website
We did some insurance marketing specific searches that match the pizza related searches in the article to illustrate how much opportunity there is to gain rank and generate leads using internet marketing strategies.
Here is an example of a long-term search term “business insurance Orlando FL” First notice in the paid ads that Hiscox is advertising their on-line small business insurance right in your back yard. We tried a few others like San Antonio and Cleveland in case you think it’s not happening in your area. We have been talking about commercial lines market erosion for independent agencies for a while. It’s happening now.
The article shows that local search is drawing the majority of the eye traffic and on this SERP you can see there is paid search, the ads in the shaded area at the top of the page, and local search that appear above the fold.
We did some additional searches “best insurance in Orlando” , “Insurance” and “How to buy Insurance” and what we noticed is a conspicuous absence of video and graphics. It is now apparent that even if you are in the middle of the page video, or graphics will significantly improve traffic.
Another interesting note . When we searched on the short-tail search term “Insurance” the SERP defaulted to our location, which we changed to Peekskill, NY. This SERP proves that local optimization creates a level playing field for local businesses. A few years ago it would have been difficult to compete with the big brands using SEO. Now it’s possible. Try optimizing for long-tail search terms and make sure optimize locally.
If you are currently optimizing your site locally, share some success stories. What directories are you using? How many? How long did it take? You can visit our site at www.neilsonmarketing.com