Registration: The First Part of an SEO Checklist for New Local Businesses from SEOmoz CEO Rand Fishkin (Part I)

There’s a rumor that new websites cannot rank higher on search engines because of the age factor of inbound links. With fresh and high-quality content, even new websites can easily climb the ranks of Google, Yahoo!, and Bing. Recently, Rand Fishkin, CEO and co-founder of SEOmoz gave tips on how new businesses can rank high on local SERPs, which all businesses can actually use in their SEO campaigns.
The first thing to do when starting an online business is to register with search engines. Major search engines mentioned are Google and Bing but for local businesses, focus should be on local search engines as well. Russia’s major search engine is Yandex, for example, whereas in China, it is Baidu. Yahoo! is also a great option to register with because a significant number of traffic comes from this search engine as well.
Aside from registering in search engines, another venue is to have your website registered in the biggest local portals within your vicinity or country. Fishkin suggests going to Trip Advisor, Yellow Pages, YP.com, Urban Spoon, City Search, and Yelp. Even Foursquare is a major location-based application which you can register your local business in.
Regional portals or key local sites are other areas local businesses can explore when getting started on doing SEO campaigns. All local sites have sections where local businesses can register in and these are often times media institutions. Reaching out to medi stations can greatly increase your visibility which will in turn, increase traffic to your website.
Consistency is the most important thing to remember when registering in major search engines, local, and regional portals. This means having the same name, location, contact information, and most importantly, web address. Consistency will be one of the primary factors search engines will look for when checking out the validity of websites. The slightest variation can result to grave consequences for your newly-launched website, which means that inbound links may not be indexed or search engines won’t be able to rank your pages.

Registration is only the first part of the SEO checklist provided by Rand Fishkin for local businesses that are new to the SEO ballgame. The second and final part of this series will discuss research, reviews, and content, and usability and how these factors in for new local businesses.
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