So many of us focus on the big picture of getting ranked well in Google and Yahoo.  But there are great opportunities to be had through local search engine optimization.  Here are some local directories you’ll want to submit your business to for enhanced local search marketing results:

• Google Places
• Yahoo Local
• Bing Local
• Best of the Web
• Yelp
• Insiderpages
• Superpages
• Citysearch
• InsiderPages
• Localeze
• Local.com
• Yellowpages
• Hotfrog

In addition to submitting your website to these pages, be sure to do some long tail local optimization.  Add zip codes to your website.  A lot of people do searches based on a geographic region such as “Hair Salon Libertyville Illinois”.  So ask yourself what local towns you service well and create optimized pages to target those phrases.

In addition to optimizing for the general category you serve, optimizing for specific products + city.  An example is “bridal up dos libertyville”.

Also be sure to list your address on every page of your website.

Ask customers to submit reviews to Yelp and other review sites.

Have local colleagues cross link with you to increase local relevancy.

Hope these tips help enhance your Local SEO.  And if you need personalized help getting ranked in your region, contact me at kristie@brandingonthenet.com.  I’d love to help you increase traffic too!