It’s guest post day here at Duct Tape Marketing, and today’s guest post is from Dan Olson – Enjoy!

Small businesses today, more than ever, rely on agencies to help with organic search and local results to drive business in their local markets. The challenge for most is ranking in the top spots to be noticed and attract the right customers. As a matter-of-fact, 67.60% of all Google clicks come from the first 5 positions, making that real estate extremely valuable and highly sought after. Understanding this challenge, we’ve come up with six tactics agencies use to help their small business customers achieve search result success.

1) Pick long-tail keywords. Not only that, but pick the right ones.

Be sure to recommend that your customers pick keywords that aren’t too short. The shorter the keyword, the more competition they are to face from competitors in the same market. Not only that, but it will take a lot more effort to build the adequate link authority in order to meaningfully rank for that keyword. Instead, you should focus on more detailed (long-tail) keywords or phrases that are specific to your clients’ solution. This results in more relevant traffic to their sites and higher rankings within search results which can substantially decrease bounce rates and increase conversions. Here are a few examples of keywords: Short-tail keywords – Marketing, SEO, Social Media, Content Creation (usually one or two words, not very targeted). Long-tail keyphrases – web design ohio, seo guest posting strategies, local marketing chicago illinois, responsive wordpress theme templates (more focused and specific to target audiences).

2) Don’t write content for the search engines.

By this, we don’t mean writing content stuffed with keywords you hope will help with your rank. if you think that method works, prepare to be greatly disappointed. Rather, write valuable content that educates your audience. It’s often pretty tempting to copy and paste content to save time. However, when you do this, you sacrifice your credibility and dilute your link authority. You should always produce content you know your audience will consume and come back to for more! Tip: Many agencies don’t have the bandwidth nor resources to do this for each and every client, but will outsource these types of services to experts in the field

3) Co-create content with other authorities in your niche market.

Business owners, in most cases, spend a lot of time building up their own content and not enough time collaborating with other people in the same industry. As an agency, they rely on you to guide them in the right direction. Finding the right partners within an industry is crucial. Whether it’s teaming up with a blogger in your city to run a thought leadership piece or investing some time to share relevant content through a local community site, there are many outlets that help increase your clients’ local visibility and build up their reputation.

4) Claim and manage your client’s local listings.

This is more of a technical SEO tactic, but still very important. “Google My Business” is a platform that enables your small business customers to verify their online visibility and local business information through the search engines. By signing up on this platform, you can help businesses keep track of their local listings and social footprint. It’s a very simple way for agencies to help small businesses get found, manage their online presence, and build relationships with consumers. Places like Angie’s List, Google+ Local, Yelp, and Citysearch are also great sources to bolster their online visibility.

5) Publish content consistently.

Consistency is key when you’re just starting out. Search engine bots come by to scrape your content on a regular basis. With more consistent publishing, search engine bots associate your domain with authority and help you rise through the search rankings. To aid in doing this, create an editorial calendar. This way, you’ll be able to keep track of your content ideas, as well as your publishing schedule. Remember, Google loves when you deliver fresh and relevant content that is shared consistently, so keep producing content that is unique to your clients’ audience and the rest will fall into place.

6) Manage your client’s online reputation.

Lastly, you want to pay attention to your client’s online reputation. Reputation management plays a significant role in your influence with customers. If your client has negative mentions or reviews online, it’s in their best interest to find them as soon as possible. This way, they have time to craft a proper response that can address, if not alleviate, the situation. Clients can also capitalize on positive mentions by responding favorably to them, helping solidify them as a trustworthy place of business. Recap: We’ve found that these tactics can have the most significant impact on your clients’ search rankings. Remember, establishing a keyword strategy early on will keep you laser-focused on developing fresh and relevant content that drive true results. Positioning is key! Building up your clients’ reputation and maintaining an authoritative figure in the local market takes time, but done right will benefit you both greatly.

Dan Olson is the Co-Founder and CEO of UpCity.com, the industry’s most robust SEO software and inbound marketing platform designed to help clients achieve local digital marketing success. Designed by pioneers in the search engine optimization industry, UpCity makes getting free traffic even easier. With a built-in “task engine,” UpCity creates personalized action plans and performance tracking reports to help guide each campaign to achieve measurable SEO success. As a stand-alone technology solution or as an extension of your services team, we partner with agencies to help them acquire, retain and scale their small business relationships.