April 14, 2006
I have been trying hard to get business owners to develop an online presence with a local focus. A lot of people don't think it's worth their time or effort, or that it's simply too technical or costly to keep a high SEO ranking.
Well in the local market, for the most part, it's not even an issue.
Fred Waters tells a great story here of a couple that went the Internet way and profited tremendously.
He was staying at an inn owned by a "charming couple, Raul and Sylvia."
"Several years ago they built a web site and now they get 90% of their business off the Internet. Except for a listing on the official Curacao site, most of their traffic is free and generated through the search engines. What is amazing is that they made little effort to optimize their site for the search engines. They just built pages that focus on their rooms, their location, scuba diving and local attractions. But important terms like Curacao, scuba diving, restaurant, etc. are peppered throughout the site.
"The same terms people would use if they were researching Curacao for a vacation. There was no conscious effort to strategically position the terms throughout the copy for the sake of the search engines. In fact, they do not even know what search engine optimization means. This is a perfect example how a local business can generate new customers with a minimal effort. I can tell you that the owners of the inn were not working on their site on a daily basis. In fact, they may not have updated it in the last six month.
"And yet they are generating new business that would cost thousands on a monthly basis if they were advertising offline."
Now depending on how competitive your market is, it wouldn't take much work at all to take charge of the search results in your local area. These are much more focused and targeted than general Internet searches from everywhere in the world.
Just by following the example above in your niche, keeping to the basics of search engine optimization and creating content that is search engine friendly, you will be way ahead of your local competitors. That means nothing more than using those words that people would look for in the town and industry you live and work in.
