Having a website is almost a requirement in today's business world. According to Yelp, 85 percent of people looking for local businesses do so on the web. If you're a business owner, you definitely want to tap into this traffic. However, a problem may arise if you have several business locations in neighboring towns. This doesn't mean, however, you need to create an individual website for each location of your business. Instead, go with a solution that gives you the advantage of having a city-specific site without the hassle and expense of maintaining a slew of individual local sites.

Give Each Business Location Its Own Page

This offers you one of the simplest solutions for localizing your website and using local search terms specific to a particular area. In other words, you can make a city or state-specific page for each of your locations. For example, let's say you have a business location in San Diego and one in San Francisco. Give each of these cities their own page. Once you do this, be sure to use keyword search terms that are specific to each page such as "San Francisco SEO Company" or "San Diego SEO Company." Also be sure to include contact information, business hours, and other pertinent information for each location on the corresponding page. In other words, you want to treat each individual page like it's the landing page of a larger city-specific website. Just be sure to include links to your main page and other important informational pages about your business like FAQ and Terms of Service. It also helps to have a list of your locations with hyperlinks to each city’s page on your “About Us” page.

Use Google Local

Google Local allows a business owner to create a directory listing for each phone number, so be sure to add your information to this valuable resource. It taps into the local search market and provides you with a directory listing. It also gives you features like search functions and local maps to make it easier to find you. You can also include reviews, contact information, and links to your website.

Spread Out the Backlinks

While much has been said about on-page optimization, you want to take steps to earn your website some backlinks. Backlinks give your website credibility with the search engines, which puts you at the top of the search results. The Google Local option is just one way to accomplish this. Other options include doing guest posts on blogs and sharing information via social media. The nice thing about this option is it allows you to drive traffic to your city and town pages. Not only does this help raise awareness for these locations, but you also earn favor with the search engines by not just linking to your home page. The latter practice comes across as unnatural in an organic search and eventually will get you penalized. However, an added benefit is that search engines will read the backlinks as a whole, meaning your entire site will eventually gain more credibility in local searches. While you might not want to have separate websites for each location, it's very easy to set up separate social media pages for each site. This helps create social backlinks and gives you the option of sharing links that are specific to a certain audience without going through the trouble of building a number of websites.

Practicing good SEO can bring plenty of local traffic to your website and ultimately your business. However, multiple websites can be expensive, time consuming, and counterproductive to your business goals. Creating single webpages you optimize for each of your business locations allows you to tap into local traffic while keeping just one site for your business. Taking further steps to promote each local page individually via directories, guest blogging, and city-specific social media pages ensures you have both the on and off-page backlinks you need to maximize the weight of your local landing pages with search engines.

Author Bio :Charles Atkin manages content creation for various companies. He is currently writing marketing blogs for Saba SEO . A Trusted San Diego SEO Company.