Top Ten Things to Do for a Local Website

American Museum of Natural History Map and Guide

Had a nice conversation with a new friend, graphic designer Harriet Spear, the other day about what to do for a small, local business web site in order to help them win a search.

1. Put the keywords, no more than 8, in the Title tag.
2. Write a description meta tag that uses those 8 words, repeating the key 3 or 4 twice.
3. Make a keywords meta tag even though most engines ignore that now. Some use it, and so it’s worth it.
4. Use header tags in the body of the page to create an outline structure that is logical. Use the title tag keywords in the main header tags (h1’s and h2’s)
5. Use those keywords in the body of the page 4 or 5 times.
6. Have at least 400 words on the first page, with 400 on each other page if you can.
7. Make sure that the title tags on subsequent pages use other keywords than the home page. Each page should have different keywords, or different combinations of the main keywords, preferably a little of both.
8. Create a business blog, even if it’s hosted elsewhere–just link the blog and site together and try to make the styles and looks as close to the same as possible. Post to the blog regularly (once a week is good).
9. Get listed in the major directories and Google Local Business.
10. Get links from similar site with high PageRank.

Of course, that last one is the one I can help you with the most. Anyone can follow basic on-page SEO instructions. Getting high-quality links from like-minded sites is not easy. Especially if your site is new. You might have to give two links back for a link to a new site, or you may have to link from the home page when the other party is linking from a lower page of many other links, which diminishes the impact of your link.

If I do your site, I link to it from all my major sites, often from the front page. If you have me develop your blog, you get in my blog roll, which is on the front page of most of my major sites. The value of these links cannot be overstated in terms of how they make you rank on Google. Just ask my LA caterer client!