Targeting Local Searches With Article Submissions
Unless an article directory is designed to be specifically for one place in the world, you might think it unlikely that you could use your article submissions to target a high listing in the new local search results many search engines are now offering. But as unlikely as it may seem, it's actually quite easy to do.
No longer relying solely on meta tag data, the search engines now index the entire piece of content to find relevance. Placing an article into a relevant category on an article directory, and adding in a specific location within the body of the article, mentioning it once in the title and three or four times within the body, will alert the index bots that your article is about "X" in that location.
To use an actual example, a person in the real estate business recently made contact asking how to get a leg up on his competition's web presence by using articles. His business location was not what you'd call the most desirable to relocate to for most people in the world, so his goal was to target his most likely potential customers in his general vicinity.
Using articles, he discovered that he was getting listed on the search engines for terms like "real estate," "buying a home," etc., yet he was getting no where close to his competitors in a search for his specific location. So a little redirection was in order.
The first step was to list all the cities in his territory, making note of some of their highlights like landmarks, hot spots, their entertainment levels, safety rating, etc.. Then he could write an article to submit for each city, bringing out the better qualities of each. These articles would then be linked, through his bio box, to pages on his site that got further into depth with information such as population, ethnicity, property values, schools, and pictures. Finally, those pages would link to other pages on his site that got into the actual house listings for each specific city.
Doing it this way, he built a flow of information that led his readers from simple curiosity right down to seeing what was available to buy. He also created an incredible flow of relevance that the search engines were bound to pick up on.
And because he was writing and submitting articles about specific locations, the search engine would naturally begin listing his articles in searches for those specific locations. And by using different key highlights for each city's article, he could also target a variety of different categories offered by the article directories, broadening his relevance factor.
The key to the whole thing was for him to focus less on his business of real estate and more on location. It shifted his expertise and made him an authority on the place rather than on selling houses, which naturally would have a greater appeal to those in the early stages of relocating.
Likewise, this change of focus also had an effect on the terms his articles listed for in the search engines, and so he began getting the targeted visitors he had hoped for.
And you can do the same thing whether you're promoting a local band, a restaurant, an event, or anything else you could think of. The article directories you send your article submissions to will solidify your articles into relevance for the thing, but mentioning location within your title and body will direct the search engines to the place.