(Note: This blog entry was written for those of you who are taking the DYI approach to search engine marketing. If you want to truly “beat ‘em,” you should contact First Page Fitness for professional search engine optimization services).
Have you ever tried a ‘local’ search on Google and been frustrated by the lack of local businesses that appear in the results? Take a look at this example where I searched for ‘gym in denver’ on Google:
Not counting the new Top 3 Local One Box results, only 1 of the ‘organic’ top 10 results is actually a gym in Denver. Every other ranking site is a ‘host’ site where either for free, or a reasonable cost, your business can be listed. Out of these top 10 results you can get a free listing on Yahoo Local, SuperPages, YellowPages.com, Craigslist, and City Search (Yellow page section via InfoUsa Listing). Considering that some of these sites have ‘indented’ listings your business could easily appear on 7 of the top 10 ten sites listed in these results for FREE. In addition you could also buy leads from healthclubdirectory.com to seal a listing on 9 out of 10 websites returned in this query.
Gaining listings (and hopefully links) from these sites is called Piggyback SEO. This technique is an excellent stopgap measure until you can get your own site ranking in the top 10 for your keywords. A good approach to take advantage of this technique is to brainstorm several keywords you’d like to be found with on Google and run queries on each one. Jot down the sites that come up and then contact the ones you’d most like to be listed on. Pretty soon your phone should be ringing with customers!
Granted, some of the free listings you’ll get won’t be on the first page returned by these direcoty sites . However, sponsored ads are usually available to get your business into a position with potential. In the next few posts I’ll explore some of these sponsored directory listings and explain how to select the right options for your business. In the meantime keep up your SEO work so one day you won’t have to pay tp be listed (long term at least 
Stay tuned …
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I have dealt with similar issues trying to get my new blog site up and going. I have registered with most of the free listing engines. MerchantCircle is a really good one, but like many others there are just not enough businesses taking advantage of them I think! I don’t know too much about many of these searches, but I have been told traffic determines ranking, but if someone has to go 4 pages before they find you, traffic is going to be hard to earn!
http://www.thelifesport.com
Josh, I don’t know who told you that traffic determines rankings, but they couldn’t be further from the truth – unless they said rankings were drawn out of a hat. I don’t mean that to be rude. I’m just trying to help. I have replied to your email address, so if you would like to learn more about SEO, feel free to email me your questions.
Good luck with your blog, by the way. And thanks for reading and commenting on ours.
PS: Check out this posting from a few months back:
http://www.firstpagefitness.com/blog/2007/01/26/the-biggest-google-ranking-myth-of-all-clicking-on-your-result
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