Having the opportunity to work with many different website owners allows me to oversee a diverse portfolio of web properties, analyze their data and pair it with upcoming trends in search. An interesting video by SEOmoz reveals some insight into the change search will be undergoing in the next few years.

Here are my thoughts on what your search engine strategy should consist of:

1. Stick to the basics of Search Engine Optimization - Find your niche, confirm the architecture of your site is SEO friendly, optimize your pages for a set of keyword phrases which you can reasonably compete for. Tip: Long combination of keywords is on the rise so don't be afraid to look for 3-4 keyword combinations.

2. Go Local - a previous article of a local search campaign for a Day Spa in Plano, TX provides all the tips you need to make sure you are optimized for local search. Being consisten with you company data and encouriging visitors to review your services on different websites is the key.

3. Go Social - A part of your search engine optimization which should probably take up more and more of your marketing focus. Search engines lean more and more towards incorporating social media related metrics into their ranking algorithm. Even if this is still a notion it looks like a reality soon-to-be. If you have not goten into social media yet - do it. It is good for your business future on the Internet. The sooner you start the better.

Important Advice: Do NOT hire a social media marketing GURU to run your social campaign. Social Media is made for the everyday person to socialize with friends. How difficult would that be.

4. Links - Due to the serious abuse from SEOs and spammers, different ranking algorithms today adopt much more complex techniques to grade and apply links towards your overal website presence in search results. This means the company you hired doing lame 500$ a month link building has stopped providing you any value for some time. You need a new, renovated approach. Here is a good balanced strategy that might be a little more expensive to carry out but will have 100X times better impact on your business:

So if you are a business owner that cares about their presence online and looking for ways to improve it this would be a great start. This article aims to show you items you can ask the seo companies you are interviewing or the person you want to hire inhouse. If you decide to work on this yourself and have questions, do not hesitate to contact me directly.

It is always fun to work on improving local search.Everything related to local search is so logical and obvious and the results are significant. A great asset is working with an actual business location rather than a floating website provides which adds a lot more credibility and chance for success. Search Engines are trying to be all about the real thing first - brands, reputable websites, nearby locations.

The key about optimizing for local search is very simple: CONSISTENCY. Relevant, consistent information across all websites. This is it - throw some reviews in and you are Done!

Here is an example:

I have the chance to optimize for a a luxury Plano Spa - The Spa at Willow Bend. The owner had done a lot of video and submitted it to video sites. Which was a great head start. So what did I do next? Well, I always follow one and the same path and it has proven successfull every single time. Here is my list of action items.

1. Agree on entry details which will be consistent across all sites:

Business Name - if you could sneak in main keyword and or location, great. If not, I guess we'll work with what we have.

Contact Details. - address, phones, emails, website, people - all the same every time, on every website.

Categories and Keyword Tags - all targeting your primary keywords and market.

2. Create Action Plan - list the websites aboveinformation has to be submitted and a create a spredsheet with login credentials. NOTE: This step is extremely important.

Imagine you have to change office or phone number you need to change this information across all websites to keep you rankings. If you don't have the credentials and the list, it will be a total waste of time to recover those.

You can find a great List of websites for local search here. It recommends handling Google, Yahoo and Bing inclusions on your own, which is a the best way to go in my opinion too.

3. Submit, Submit, Submit - Submit in all websites in a span of 2 -3 weeks. Do not do it all ot once. It's boring and its better to be done throughout a period of time.

4. Evaluate - now when you have submitted everywhere and a week has passed check if you are included in Yahoo, Bing and Google Maps for your business name.

5. Reviews - a very important component for local search. Find a way to inspire your customers to comment on websites like insidepages.com and citysearch.com and on your google, yahoo and bing map entries. Over time, having a lot of review will help you business signifficantly.

Once this is all done and a strategy for customer reviews is in place, you can relax and watch the results.

Although not directly related yet to the local search algorithm - linking all this with your social media accounts is the proper way to go. Interacting with your customer and prospects via Facebook, Twitter and other social networks builds a stronger relationship and increases brand exposure. Nobody will be surprised when realtime search kicks in. Whichever business has a greater social media presence the better.

For some very competitive areas and categories where local search optimization is needed it might be more difficult to make it on the 10 map results right away. In such cases you just need to pursue local linking from nearby businesses and area related websites.

This sounds like a lot but it is not meant to be done in a week. A good local search campaign should be 6-8 weeks and local links should be major part of your linking campaign.

Remember - for this stuff to work you don't have to strive your online presence to be lightning years ahead of your competitors - just a lil better.