Regional Search Engine Optimization: July 2010

Everybody Wants To Be #1 In Google

SEO is the abbreviation for Search Engine Optimization, the Optimization part denotes that there are parts of your website or blog that can be modified or "optimized" to perform better (rank higher) in Google search results pages.

What's the most valuable part of your website and blog?

The title and the opening line of text.

The first words out your mouth need to be what your prospect wants... NOT what you want to say about yourself.

No One Gives a Damn Who You Are

Nor do they really care if you "welcome them to your website"

The most common gross tactical error I see in company websites of all kinds is to open with:

"Welcome to our website"

Your prospects care about one thing and one thing only: What they're searching for and are you local.

keywords + geographical area.

Give Google's customer (it's users, the people who use Google to search for anything and everything) what they want and Google will give you what you want.

The audience to please is, in this order:

Make Google's users happy,
Give Google what it wants,
then give your prospects what they want.

You come in dead last in this pecking order.

Let's analyze this: if your company isn't in the top spot in Google, no one will ever see your website. A website's sole purpose, it's only reason for existance is to PERFORM in Google Search Results Pages (aka serps). It's a waste of time, effort and money to craft a website if said website doesn't show up in the top 10, the first page of search results.

To pull this off you have to give Google what it wants... and what Google wants is for it's users to find what they want... and they way they do that is this and this alone:

keywords + geographical area

not keywords + geographical area, people search for X, then quickly discover Google returns search results for X in other states, not where they are. They clicked back and added the geographical area they are located in.

Another gross tactical marketing error on most company websites, real estate websites/ blogs included is:

Keywords PLURAL, most business owners selfishly want people to think they are the sole supplier for X in a region. It's human nature, your prospects on the other hand are NOT searching for ONE suppiler, they're searching for the plural of a keyword.

Take lawyers for example, I have attorneys as local SEO clients, our competition is touting themselves as divorce laywer in X or criminal lawyer in X

The people searching for a lawyer are looking for lawyerS, attorneyS not one attorney.

So what text do you open with? How do you come up with a single line that sells the sizzle, not the steak?

Go to a blank Google page, begin to type, Google "suggest" searches before you finish typing, what you're looking at is previous search querries, that tells you someone already has interest in that as a keyword phrase. You might want to use that exact phrase because many people are likely to simply scroll down and search for that.

From Local SEO For Maryland Small Business

If that tactic (use Google's suggested searches) doesn't prompt you with ideas for an opening line, you could use Google's keyword tool for ideas.

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

I'll close this post with one last pet peeve... I guess I look kinda jaded, ya think? I keep getting local SEO clients that "think" they know what they want, I refuse to help someone commit Google Ranking Suicide. I have too many people on my waiting list to put up with a stubborn client. A consultants job is "horse led to water, drink or don't drink"

Google adwords, I'm sure you know what they are. In adwords companies bid on keywords, the higest bidder gets the top spot... well not really

There is a quality score google uses, if your site's quality score is higher you don't have to be the highest bidder to get the highest rank. If you purport your site is about X and X isn't prominently displayed on your site... your quality score goes down and the price you get charged per bidding goes up.

How do you get a better quality score? make the very first words out of your mouth be the keywords you're shooting for.

The algorithm that determines googlemaps ranking (Google local business listings is Googlemaps) also uses the quality score algorithm,

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