Local Search Optimisation for Cyprus

Cyprus SEO

When people look for a business or service, most want to use someone local to them. You wouldn’t want an engineer to have to travel 200 miles when there is an equally skilled engineer half a mile from your home or business.

Local search services are predominantly free directories which, quite literally, put your business on the map. In the case of Google, Yahoo and Bing, you submit your business to their local business directory and verify your business by phone or post. Once accepted your business listing, complete with a link to your website plus a map showing your location, will appear in their search results.

If someone then performs a search for your type of business, for example “your business” in Nicosia, a list of matching businesses in the area will feature along with a map of the area. This can bring valuable targeted traffic to your website and these listings often come high up in the results, sometimes above the natural search listings, therefore giving your website increased visibility.

If you have a niche industry it is likely that you will not have much competition in the search results, but some more competitive industries may have hundreds of businesses listed in the same area. Search engines will only show, at the most, 10 of these listings. Therefore to take advantage of this service you need to optimise your local business listing to secure your place.

Yahoo Local, Google Maps and Bing Places offer a great opportunity to show off your business and services as you can add images, ask customers to give you reviews, and direct people to your door using the map features. If you can optimise your listing, you can gain valuable new customers.

Cyprus Business Directories

In addition to the major search engines, there are also many smaller business directories where you can add your business listing for free. Even though you may not have heard of the directory, they are still worth submitting your business details to as this will be good for SEO (search engine optimisation), and will increase the chances of your website appearing in the main search engine results.

Social Media

If you have social networking accounts on Facebook, Google+ or LinkedIn, it is essential you enter as much detail as possible about your business. Give full contact details, a comprehensive description of what you do (including keywords & phrases), making sure to tag your company’s location if possible.

Google Cyprus

Google has had a dedicated search domain for Cyprus (www.google.com.cy) for a couple of years now. It does not offer the full functionality of many other country domains, but it undoubtedly favours sites that have a Cypriot URL (www.companyname.com.cy) and that are optimised for local search.

Even though the number of searches is relatively low when compared to Google.com, there are still almost 3000 performed daily. That is still a significant level of traffic and it’s quite likely that these people could be searching for the very products or services that your website offers.

Get your website optimised for local search

If you are not doing this already or are not implementing it properly, you are literally turning away business! Local search in Cyprus is not difficult; it will take a little time to set up properly, but it is essential, and many of the methods of achieving it are free.

Contact us on +357 99091948 or info@cypruscopywriter.com  to discuss how you can optimise your website to make the most out of local search traffic.