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Improve your search engine rankings

Most clients are not worldwide companies looking for global domination. They are small to medium sized organisations supplying products or services to a localised customer base – usually within a fixed mile radius of their works.

One prospect recently asked the following question which I would like to share with you. I think that if you’re a business looking to drive local custom with search engine optimization you’ll find this post useful.

Prospect Question: “I want to rank high in the search engines for “Carpet Cleaning in London,” the city where I am based. I don’t really want to travel much more than a 40 mile radius from my office base as my prices (to cover travel expenses and time) become less competitive. I want to drive more business through my website via natural search, as paid for listings don’t seem to be enough for me.

So, would it better to optimize my web pages for “Carpet Cleaning” and “London” separately, or focus on the complete phrase? Which option would be more useful to the local clients, but might turn off potential custom outside the “London” catchment?”

Answer: As with most things about SEO there never is a “one size fits all” as it depends fully on your business, market, competition and demand. However, based on the query and search terms you’re concerned with, this how Amplified Media would do it.

Research long-tail keywords

Trying to compete for common and competitive keywords will take time and a lot of investment, you should really look at finding the long-tail keywords – these are more specific combinations that you can apply to the competitive keyword you want to rank well for.

Working to rank on the first page for “London” would not be cost effective and would take you a very long time, taking into account the level of competition you would be up against. But, if you were to combine “London” with “Carpet Cleaning” as a search phrase you have just created a long-tail keyword.

After running a keyword analysis using Google’s keyword tool for “Carpet Cleaning”, “London”, “Carpet Cleaning London” and “London Carpet Cleaners” – the research produced these results:

“Carpet Cleaning” = 201,000 searches last month
“London” = 101,000,000 searches last month(!)
“Carpet Cleaning London” = 12,100 search last month
“London Carpet Cleaners” = 3,600 searches last month

After a few minutes research the data retrieved above reveals you are much more likely to rank for “Carpet Cleaning London” and “London Carpet Cleaners”. Not only that, but you have now created a search phrase has become more relevant for you and your prospects looking to do business.

To target other areas within your 40 mile catchment you would simply do the same as in above to identify the keywords – “Carpet Cleaners Harrow”, “Carpet Cleaners Golders Green” and so on. Once you have your list you will need to build a number of pages that you should optimize for the specific search term. A good way to do this is to keep the branding and messaging of your site focused on Carpet Cleaning, but create specific pages relevant to your long-tail keywords. Think of each page as a unique landing page, even if all it does is provide information – try to avoid duplicating your page content.

Submit your site to local-search listings

An absolute must is for you to register your business to all the search engines that offer local business search – the big ones being Google and Yahoo! But you could also research others – there are literally 100’s – such as Touch Local and U Find Us.

Every local search engine will have its own rules and listing submission guidelines, and you will need to read up on these. Please keep in mind you do not need to register to everyone out there just focus on the top few for now.

After the local listings accept your submission application, they will rank you higher for the keywords related to your business than nonlocal sites. For example, in London search listings, you would rank higher for “Carpet Cleaner” than other carpet cleaning companies outside of the area.

Important factors to consider with local search:

1. Your company address and phone number must match the local area you are targeting. Search engines must be able to easily crawl that information on your site, so be sure to have your address on the Contact Us page of your site.

2. Ask your customers how they found you, if they came through Google local search for example, ask them to write a review for you. Customer reviews will boost your natural “local” ranking and help convert future prospects. Offer the clients a 10% discount on your next clean for example.

3. You will no doubt be targeting multiple locations, so make sure each location has its own “real” page (unique landing page) with specific, targeted information. Simply creating multiple pages with duplicate content will not fool the search engine spiders if the only difference between the pages is the name of the location. Spending a little time getting this right will reap you long-term rewards.