| Search Engine Optimization is often tough to become | | | | restaurant off-site SEO is to submit information to |
| successful when dealing with hyper-local businesses. | | | | these larger aggregate sites, or take ownership of |
| For starters, many of these companies' websites are | | | | profiles that already exist. This will allow you to ensure |
| not designed or maintained directly by the business | | | | that information appearing on these sites, such as |
| themselves - frequently, these small to mid sized | | | | website link, phone number, and address, are correct in |
| organizations enlist the services of an Internet Yellow | | | | each instance. |
| Pages (IYP) company to create and manage their | | | | To continue on with my example, let's look at a local |
| website. While they may have access to change | | | | restaurant in Northwest Indiana, Teibel's Family |
| content in these cases, it is common for IYPs to only | | | | Restaurant. If you were to search the company's |
| allow access to certain fields within a site, and not the | | | | name on Google, for instance, you would see a myriad |
| entire HTML/CSS back-end. | | | | of listings for the restaurant, both from larger review |
| Complicating things further is the lack of a true | | | | sites such as the ones I mentioned above, and |
| geographic focus with many of these businesses. Say, | | | | less-known data aggregate communities. Though as |
| for example, a family restaurant is located in | | | | SEOs, we know that searching for a brand name isn't |
| Schererville, Indiana. In the restaurant ownerships' eyes, | | | | the best indicator of website prominence, the point |
| they probably feel that they serve Northwest Indiana - | | | | here is that these sites are helping to contribute to the |
| or potentially even the "greater Chicagoland area". | | | | overall Internet profile of Teibel's itself. As evidence, |
| Both are technically true, but do accurately represent | | | | Teibel's website has a PR of 4 - not too bad for a |
| their core geographic target, which would be | | | | local restaurant in Northwest Indiana. |
| "Schererville, Indiana" and local surrounding areas. Has | | | | Reviews are often a touchy subject in the industry, |
| your family ever driven 45 minutes to eat dinner? It's | | | | namely for two reasons- potential for fraud (i.e. fake |
| not very likely; therefore, "Northwest Indiana" is too | | | | reviews), and also because of the potential for |
| broad of a target. | | | | negative reviews to hurt a brand image. While I think |
| For instances such as my example above, a great | | | | the former is justified, and the latter can be true, if a |
| way to promote the hyper-local geographical target of | | | | business such as a restaurant is receiving a majority |
| SMBs can be through sites that allow reviews, such as | | | | of legitimate negative reviews, all of the SEO in the |
| those offered to consumers on such sites as Yelp, | | | | world probably isn't going to help them that much |
| OpenTable, and Yahoo. The first step in managing the | | | | anyway. |