One of my customers recently asked me:
“If I want searches such as “Southlake marketing” or Colleyville marketing” to lead to our site, do I have to incorporate those specific terms into my document, or is that just something you can register?”
The real answer behind this is too complicated for an email. It’s a skill like any other that has to be developed with time and practice. Instead of overwhelming her, I tried to lay out a sort of checklist that included some of the major elements.
These all have a similar theme, so it won’t be too hard for them to apply the theory to other aspects of their writing that I didn’t mention.
Here’s my reply:
Getting search phrases is a little tricky, and there’s almost an art form to it. You can’t just register a search phrase (well, you sort of can but it’s expensive). Instead, we’re trying to produce a niche-market website that the search engines (Google, Yahoo!, etc.) will pick up on naturally. The term for this is “organic marketing.”
That doesn’t mean you don’t have any control. There are a lot of little things you can do with your writing to help get the search phrases you want. Here are a few:
- Write your article and then decide what search phrases you think people would use to find it. Go back through your work to make sure you use those same phrases in your writing.
- Don’t target overly-generic search phrases. The search term “marketing” has a lot more competition than “marketing consultants in Southlake”
- Title your article with keywords that you think people will be searching for.
- Target a niche market. This is why I think it’s important to keep all of your local articles on the site – you’re targeting the DFW niche.
You can get caught up in doing too many things to get search engine rankings. Just keep in mind that you’re writing for other humans to read, not for machines. Don’t get carried away with tips like the above. Instead, write for the purpose of providing value to your reader and you’ll be fine.