Five Local SEO Tips you should consider to increase the probability of higher search engine ranking page (SERP).

1. Claim your listing on major search engines.
   This is a simple step, but it is also very important. Claiming your business listing at Google, Yahoo, and Bing will give your company exposure and imrpove your rankings. You can do this by searching your business and once located you can claim the business, well actually anyone can also.
2. Make sure you are listed in the correct categories.
   Having your business correctly listed is important in targeted searches.  As an example DMOZ will require you to “drill into” by clicking your way through a specific category (e.g., Computing > Internet Services > Search Engine > SEO ). Making sure the mapping is correct and updating your listing can help with your higher placement on SERPs.
3. Keep your business information consistent.
   Having your information match up throughout the web helps Google know that the information is correct and relevant. More specifically, your description and your opening paragraph on the landing page. This also means not keyword stuffing your titles because that makes the information look incorrect to Google.
4. Have Analytics on your website.
   It is important to have Analytics for your site so you can see exactly what keywords bring in traffic, and what pages of your site are helping or hurting your turnover. By watching these statistics, you can figure out exactly how to imrpove your website. Google Analytics offers something called Overlay, which will place statics on your links and will show you where your traffic is being drawn.
5. Check out the competition.
   Look at both natural and local search results for your targeted keywords and see who shows up. See how your competition lists their businesses and see if you can apply any of that to your company. Remember, success breads success!

These are basic steps every company should take in order to make sure your business ranks better in search engines, brings more eyes to your company, and eventually brings in more business.

Be Mindful of Length – 65 characters is the maximum amount that will display in the search results (the engines will show an ellipsis – “…” to indicate when a title tag has been cut off), and sticking to this limit is generally wise. However, if you’re targeting multiple keywords (or an especially long keyword phrase) and having them in the title tag is essential to ranking, it may be advisable to go longer.

Place Important Keywords Close to the Front – The closer to the start of the title tag your keywords are, the more helpful they’ll be for ranking and the more likely a user will be to click them in the search results.

Leverage Branding – Start every title tag with a brand name mention, as these help to increase brand awareness, and create a higher click-through rate for people who like and are familiar with a brand. Many SEO firms recommend using the brand name at the end of a title tag instead, and there are times when this can be a better approach – think about what matters to your site (or your client’s site).

Consider Readability and Emotional Impact – Creating a compelling title tag will pull in more visits from the search results and can help to invest visitors in your site. Thus, it’s important to not only think about optimization and keyword usage, but the entire user experience. The title tag is a new visitor’s first interaction with your brand and should convey the most positive impression possible.