Many local businesses find it hard to compete for their preferred search terms in the major search engines. Often it seems virtually impossible to compete with larger companies who actually have large online marketing departments filled with staff dedicated to the task.
What’s the answer – do you need to hire an seo genius? Most small local businesses and certainly sole traders just don’t have the funds to hand over for this kind of marketing action.
We believe the answer is to localise your keyword search terms as much as possible.
So for example if you are a plumber in Stirling, Scotland then why would you want to show up for the word ‘plumbing’ or even ‘local plumber’. Instead make sure you have a list of the areas that can cover geographically with your service and use these. For example ‘plumber Stirling’ or ‘local plumber in Stirling’
A little time spent on figuring out what your potential customers will actual type into google to find you and staying focused on the geographical are you actually can and want to service will cut out the vast majority of time you were otherwise spending on trying to rank in google for more generic terms.
That brings us to a few tips on figuring out what your potential customers will type into google to find you:
1) Ask you current customers how they found you and what they actually typed into google.
2) Gather a fair number of responses and then sort this into the top 5 to 10 terms your current customers used.
3) Where possible (and if its not already included) you should include your local geographic search term along with the list you’ve gathered.
For further help on seo – check out our shops for latest guides and seo packages.
