Get Noticed for little.

That’s right, sit around on your couch, do as little as you possibly can and have customers flocking to your door.

Now I tell you, that will work for pretty much nobody. You can’t just sit around and expect a whole bunch of people to come to your door.

But that’s not what I’m going to be talking about today. Today, I want to talk about how you can highlight using local keywords or less-used keywords and get more customers.

This is more for local companies than it is for national. Of course, Easy SEO and More is for more local and smaller companies.

And this is going to be big for you, because think about it: Let’s say you have a retail store and you sell sell Nike® shoes, and someone types in Nike on a search engine. What are they going to find? They’re going to find the Nike store, they’re probably going to find that before they find your store.

So what if you use keywords like Nike shoes, Los Angeles, if you’re a Los Angeles company. Or, if you’re in Boulder, Nike shoes, Boulder, Colorado. Or whatever city and state you’re in. Adding in the city name for your keywords can make a big difference.

Yes, fewer people are going to look for that.

But it is becoming even more important to do keywords for your local customers. First, local customers are going to be more likely to know, like, and trust you.

They feel like they know you because you’re local.

And even if you sell nationally, I would put whatever city and state you’re in right on the front page of your website. It doesn’t have to be at the top, it could be at the bottom. Put your address on your web site. Even if your mailing address is a PO box, it will still show the city and the state.

 And that can be very important because Google is starting to push local results over national results. I’ve been talking about this a lot lately, and it’s very, very important.

Use low search volume and local keywords to boost your business because Google’s actually highlighting those more. For instance, let’s say you have a Chinese restaurant in Austin, Texas. And you want to get found for Chinese restaurant, of course. But do you care if you’re found in New Jersey or Florida or places like that for a Chinese restaurant?

No, you want to be found in Austin, Texas first. But not just that. What if you use a keyword like chow fun Chinese restaurant, Austin, Texas or whatever your main menu item is?

Of course, personally, I prefer black bean chicken over chow fun, but everybody has their own choices.

Whatever your biggest menu item is, add that to your keywords.

Yeah, fewer people are going to look for it, but the people that do look for it are looking for that very specific thing. If they’re looking for chow fun in Austin, Texas, and you do keywords for chow fun Chinese restaurant in Austin, Texas, people are going to find you immediately. Let’s say 10 people a month look for that keyword. That’s 10 more very particular potential clients every month that you could have. 10 more clients for most local businesses each month, your business would be out of control within what, six, eight, 10 months? Unless you’re selling bubblegum or very small ticket items.

But for an average restaurant, an extra 10 people every single month, that’s an extra 100 people coming to your restaurant in under a year. Even if you have a retail store, pick your highest selling item, highlight that items keywords along with your business name, your city, your state, and people that are looking for that particular item will find you. When they find you, they’re going to come in and they’re going to buy that or maybe they’ll buy it online if you have an online store.

But again, it won’t matter if they buy it online or come in to buy it. If you’re local, they still have that bigger sense of trust, like, and know. And when they have that they’re going to be more likely to buy from you.

• Dr. Ty Belknap, CEO, Port Bell SEO