How can you get found in search with so many websites out there? What makes yours stand out or show up in search results?
Be what your customer is looking for, and prove it with your site content and links.
The narrower your niche or target market, the more likely you are to show up in search.
All search is local!
Example – let’s say you sell tires. A lot of people sell tires, and if you’re basing your titles and content on being a tire salesman, you’re not likely to get found with a new website.
Your site XYZTire.com might show up in search eventually if you get listed in local business listings and have tire-related content on your site, but there’s a shorter route to discovery and display in Search Engine Results Pages (SERP)
Say you live in Allentown, PA. –
Title your site Tires | Allentown PA. Immediately you’ve given a local reference, which search engines find useful in their task of returning useful results to their customers.
Make sure your “locations” page uses schema microdata for your geographic location, to optimize your site for a local search function. A WordPress plugin such as Yoast Local is great for this task.
Set up a local business page on Google+ to get on Google maps and possible display in local search. Same for Bing local.
If you’re selling particular brands of tires, be sure to include photos and links to the manufacturer’s website.
Let’s suppose your highest margin customer buys radial tires of a certain size. Build a page or a post with the title “Tires for Mercedes Benz | Allentown” with tools for selecting and quoting a particular tire brand and size.
Repeat this process for all the categories you’d like to focus on. With a content management system like WordPress (the most widely used and supported of all content management systems), you have the power to create unlimited posts with unlimited urls and titles.
Page title is crucial for discovery – and the more specific it is, with a local focus, the better able you will be to “rank” for a particular “long-tail keyword.”
This process is known as “search engine optimization” (SEO).
Long-tail keyword?
You sell “tires.” That’s a very competitive keyword – a lot of people sell tires. How many sell “Mercedes Benz Tires in Allentown, PA”? That’s a long-tail keyword; your core, competitive keyword with a series of modifiers narrowing your niche. Use it as a page title, and you’ll maximize your chances of getting found in search.
Links
Links are important, but not as important as unique useful content with a local focus. Buying inbound links from an “SEO” link-building service can be toxic to the health of your site under Google’s new rules. Outbound links to useful information along with good internal linking (links to your own content) in your site are both very good. WordPress is an excellent platform for internal linking as well, with robust support built into the platform.
You don’t need a link from the Goodyear tire site to rank – although getting one would be very helpful, as you should from all of your vendors. Inbound links from authoritative, relevant sites are really helpful, but not essential to compete locally for long-tail keywords.
Number 2 in organic search!