10 Great San Diego SEO Resources

SEO in San Diego is becoming an increasingly visible business force, as local San Diego businesses become savvier about the power of SEO. Along these lines, there are several resources specific to San Diego that can assist businesses in achieving their SEO and local search optimization objectives, as well as achieving healthy overall business development.

The following are suggestions for 10 great resources that can be leveraged to increase any local San Diego business's local SEO effort.

http://www.sandiego.gov

This one admittedly is more of an overall business resource than a San Diego SEO specific one. However, I included it because of it’s overall importance to business owners in the San Diego area. And keep in mind, the City of San Diego website does provide links to certain core San Diego businesses that are considered very important or highly trafficked destination sites (such as Cox Cable, local news stations, or SignOnSanDiego.)

From an SEO perspective, this can in fact be very valuable in a somewhat indirect way. The reason is, while a typical local business may not stand a chance of being listed on the SD site, it can give you some great ideas for linking opportunities at the destination sites listed there (like the ones I mentioned above.) In other words, those sites are obviously considered authorities in their respective areas, and as such, any one way link you can get from them would be very valuable to your SEO efforts.

Outside of SEO, if you are a San Diego based business, no matter what market sector your business falls under, likely you would benefit from resources at the City of San Diego, and particularly, those listed under the Business and Construction category.

This is especially true if you have a San Diego based business related to the fields of architecture, planning and design, construction, and related engineering fields. Much of the City of San Diego’s business resources are focused on Development Services i.e. current and future construction and infrastructure projects, since this is an area where San Diego municipal issues overlap so prominently with the business community.

Beyond the design and engineering disciplines, there are many other resources that may benefit your San Diego based business either directly or indirectly, through community outreach programs and other City sponsored programs, resources, and activities.

http://www.dmoz.org/Regional/North_America/United_States/California/Counties/San_Diego/Business_and_Economy

DMOZ is arguably the Grandaddy of all internet directories. It was one of the first, and may be one of the few remaining, all human edited web directories, and is considered a very highly regarded directory, due to the selective nature of this directory’s listings. That is, the editors are notoriously picky about which sites they permit to be listed at DMOZ, and as such, being included in this directory speaks very highly of a particular website.

Submission and inclusion are free, and can take upwards of 6 weeks to be listed, if a submitted site ultimately makes the cut at all. For local San Diego SEO efforts, the regional San Diego category is of particular interest. However, any link from DMOZ is highly valuable to your overall SEO effort.

http://www.bbb.org/san-diego/business-reviews/associations/nari-san-diego-chapter-in-san-diego-ca-34000048/

The BBB is a long established organization that works to ensure the credibility and trustworthiness of businesses across the country. Being a member is always a good idea, and depending on what level of membership you opt for, there are benefits to be gained for your web ite marketing efforts. Here is a link to the San Diego Better Business Bureau.

Depending on which city within the greater San Diego area that your business is located, you might want to consider being a member of your local chamber of commerce. Becoming a member provides a lot of old fashioned professional networking opportunities that could be a great source of new leads and sales for your San Diego business. In addition, becoming a paid member generally includes a listing in the particular chamber’s web directory, which will generally carry significant PageRank and authority, and highly targeted to your local search optimization efforts for San Diego related searches.

For example's sake, if your business is located in the Rancho Penasquitos area of San Diego, you would join San Diego North Chamber of Commerce. Others exist for other incorporated cities around San Diego county.

http://extension.ucsd.edu/

The UCSD Extension program in San Diego offers SEO classes, along with general Web Design, Web Development, and other related classes and certificate programs. Notably, some of the SEO classes and programs here are being co-sponsored by SEO Inc., a San Diego based SEO firm headquartered in the North County San Diego city of Carlsbad.

https://www.score-sandiego.org/

The Score division of the Small Business Association in San Diego is a great resource for anyone planning or operating a small business in San Diego. Again, this one is not really a San Diego SEO resource directly – although it does sponsor many affordable workshops which include marketing training. More specifically, Score can help a new or struggling business with it’s overall marketing plan, and help identify new strategies for funding which can be budgeted for SEO consultant services (for example) if your San Diego small business does not currently have a budget for SEO.

Sign On San Diego is a huge destination site for San Diegans, and it includes many opportunities for marketing, advertising, many of which have very definite and specific SEO benefits catered to San Diego related search. For example, they offer advertising packages that include classified ads, banner ads, and other one way linking opportunities that provide link popularity as well as exposure.

http://www.sdbackyard.com/

Related to Sign On San Diego is a sister site owned and operated by them, called SDBackyard, which is a local San Diego community based directory which also incorporates many social media components, such as blogs, forums, video and photo sharing, and others.

http://www.yelp.com/sandiego

Speaking of local community based directories, Yelp is now a highly popular authority site that offers a detailed directory categorized by City and Community. Like SDBackyard, Yelp also incorporates many social media and user generated features such as user reviews, messeging, and the ability for friends to find each other and stay connected via the Yelp site.

http://sandiego.backpage.com/online/classifieds/index

http://sandiego.craigslist.org/

Last I checked, word was that BackPage.com provided dofollow links in it’s classified ads. Those familiar with SEO realize that dofollow links are the most valuable links for SEO purposes, because they are used by search engine spiders to pass link popularity and authority from one site to the next. The more dofollow links one can get, the better for SEO. And since the San Diego BackPage.com directory is so highly targeted to San Diego businesses, and is a high authority site, this will provide a significant boost to San Diego local based search rankings.

Disclaimer: Over the past few years, there have been comparisons between BackPage.com and Craigslist.org regarding SEO value of links. And during that time at various points both of these sites have had nofollow and dofollow tags implemented on their links within classifieds. The fact is, there is no guarantee and the type of links they offer can change at the drop of dime. Still, both resources are highly valuable to any San Diego business’s overall Search Engine Marketing (SEM) plan, even if the specific SEO value might be in question. Just keep that in mind, and use both of these resources for their strengths, that is to build exposure and generate new leads to your business. The SEO boost, if available, can just be though of as a “bonus.”

There you have it; 10 top online destinations to assist with your local San Diego search engine optimization and local search efforts. If you make use of just a few of these sites and resources, you will be well on your way to increasing your site's exposure, link popularity, authority, search engine rankings, and San Diego local search placements.