Well if I have a site on Ohio, than how can I market my site locally ? Like should I submit my site to online local directories as well as to yellow pages ? (my site is just informative site, I am not selling anything) ? What can be the other ways of marketing ? Regards
You can use google adwords with the local filters available but if you don't sell anything and the site is not profitable at all you will waste a lot of money. A good idea for a non-profit informative-only site is to ask related websites for a link on their homepage. If in your keyword is contained your city or state, for example 'ohio restaurants', 'new york rent a car services' or 'london escorts' (just a few examples) you can try to optimize your site and acquire links to rank good for these search terms and if your website is a good and usefull one hopefull you will get quality natural links. Finally try to search for free local directories and make homepage link exchanges with related sites to get traffic.
I'm currently in the same boat. Just starting with the online marketing and began a local website. So far only friends and family have visited. There really doesn't seem to be a lot of information on promoting localized sites? Or am I wrong? What I have thought of so far includes... Placing ads in local papers. I'm actually going today to do just that. If the area doesn't know it exists, it doesn't exist to them. So use something that a lot of people use already! Also see if there are any other local sites (state, city, etc) that may have a public registry or classifieds. The other site for the area I am working on, has one, but I don't want to tread on their project (competition you know). Also, if you have the cash, try the same but with paid advertising. Another type of site to add to is Wikipedia. Look up your town / area and place a link to your site there. Google Adwords might work here as well. Again if you have the cash (not expensive though from what I hear). Bumper stickers or full page magnetic sheets for the side doors. You can purchase both at places like Wally World or VIP, etc. Print out a few and place on your own car, your spouse's, parent's, sibling's and anyone elses vehicle with permission of course! Then drive around a lot or just keep it passive with your normal commutes. Word of mouth. This can work, but I'm finding to be a bit slow! Business Cards. These can be done like any normal business, but with your sites name and URL. It can be that simple. Then place around town and see if it generates any traffic. T-Shirts. If you have a screen printing kit (tulle, fabric paint, car squeegee and some wood) you can make t-shirts for you and your family, friends, so forth to wear. Or use cafepress and order a t-shirt from your online store with an ad for your site. Other than that I am stumped. Let me know how it goes for you though and any ideas you come up with.
Another idea might be, if possible, to add some "additional" pages that are somewhat unrelated to the local content and then promote as per regular non-local page. For example, a dating service on a community portal (which can also bring in subscription cash). In this example two seperate sites could be added, one for locals exclusively and another for the general populace or if you have a good script just one site for everyone and they can search by location from within. Then promote that site almost as if seperate from your main (localized) content site. This way people will come to the dating service, but may also see something that interests them on your normal site. It should also be something that your main site visitors can benefit from as well. With the dating service above it actually benefits everyone (including yourself, hopefully ) in that your external unrelated visitors will say "hey, I want that" and main site visitors from the locale in question, will do the same and thereby both can use your services.
Are you listed in Google Local ? Also, geographically specific anchor text links will help too - Columbus Web Design in Google has over 30 million results, but I helped a friend get into the top 20 in a matter of a few weeks simply getting him to gear more towards his area and not just his service ...
Have you considered any offline advertising avenues? This may be more effective with a site such as this.
Hmm is Google Local about shops/services because it looks like it is My site is informative site like say tourist spots or bottle manufacturer in Kentucky(just example)
Poseidon, I have a somewhat similiar site. My site is an online resourse guide for nightlife in Texas. A huge traffic driver for me and might help get your name out is we take pictures and hand them a card that directs them to our site where they are able to flip through them and download them if they would like. We have only been open 3 months and generating about 700k hits this month.