By Julie Friedman Bacchini

Search Engine Optimization used to be pretty easy – create relevant title tags for web pages and content that used the keywords you wanted to be found for and voila, page one Google positioning.

Or create a page for each town you wanted to target and talk about your product or service plus the town name and zip code and again, high Google rankings were to be had…

Sadly, those days are long gone.

Fortunately, some other features have been introduced into search that make creating and maintaining a strong local search presence in some ways easier than in years past. For small and especially local businesses, making sure that you have as much visibility in your target geographic area is critical.

Here are some of the best ways to maximize your local search visibility:

1. Make sure you actually talk about the geographic areas you serve and the products and/or services you provide – just do it on a single page and not one for each town!
2. Create or claim a Google My Business page for each of your business locations.
3. Create, or more likely claim, listings for your business on third party sites such as Yelp, Manta, CityPages, Kudzu, Patch, etc.
4. Make sure your information is correct and consistent across all of these listings – search engines are better at knowing that an address written as Main Street one place and Main St. in another are actually the same, but try to pick one way to write out your address and stick with it.
5. If there are specialized web sites for your type of business, make sure you have listings on them (for instance sites like Angie’s List and Home Advisor for residential services).

If you are not sure which sites you should create or claim listings on, try searching for your business + location and also for your top competitors + their location(s) and see what listing sites come up in the search results.

Getting your listings claimed and consistent can be time consuming and different sites make it harder or easier to access listings. There are also services out there that will manage your listings for you for an annual fee.

These services can be an efficient option, but just be sure you understand what will happen to your listings if you ever decide to stop paying the annual fee!

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Julie Friedman Bacchini is the president of Neptune Moon LLC, a full-service internet marketing and web design firm. She and her blog are regularly included in many top search marketing influencer lists. Julie has presented on topics such as web site experience, local search visibility and paid search both locally and at national industry conferences, including SMX East and PPC Hero. You can find Julie on Twitter @NeptuneMoon or reach her via email at info@neptunemoon.com or telephone at 484-341-8181.