Using SEO to target a specific geographic areas are key in hitting some niche markets, especially for small SEO campaigns competing against large players in a market. lets look at one way to do this.

we’ll assume that is an established company out there who was running a website selling Vacation and Vacation Rental packages. The company is based in California and is currently running a national SEO campaign. for Vacation Rentals They recently found that there was a particularly large market of people in St. Louis, MO who were buying up vacation and vacation rental packages. now what could they do to enhance their SEO campaign in St. Louis, MO. **sponsored by VRBO, Background Check, & Website Design St. Louis**

Lets get Relevant!

the company is planning to create a dedicated page that only deals with vacations packages and vacation rentals in St. Louis to increase their relevancy.
Their keyword research shows that the best set of keywords is “vacation rentals st. louis”
create a new page to hold the relevant content the page
1) The new page has the URL of http://companysite.com/VACATION-RENTALS-ST-LOUIS/

2) Next they tweak the pages title tags, they add some location information to their TITLE meta tag with their keywords
<title>Vacation Rentals St. Louis, Mo – Company Name</title>

3)they now create content that is relevant to vacation rentals in St. Louis they figure out what vacationers are looking for when they visit St. Louis and present that content, perhaps weather, the favorite local spots, tourist attractions, etc. The page essentially becomes a real resource.

4) they link to this new page from the homepage of the current site with “Vacation Rentals St. Louis Mo” as the anchor text of the hyperlink. The company also starts a local link campaign for the same set anchor text. they target local businesses that are related to vacation rentals, restaurants, transportation, tour companies, etc.

this would be a great start to creating a geo targeted SEO campaign. I encourage YOU to comment on this post!

Take some time and watch this Matt Cutts interview. Matt answers the following:
**sponsored by VRBO, Background Check, & Website Design St. Louis**

1. Find out what was Matt’s first encounter with spam,
2. What does Matt think are the biggest problems that search engines will encounter in the next 5 years
3. Matt gives his take on how small webmasters can compete with large players in their market
4. Matt tells us what every webmaster should know
5. Matt talks about how google interacts with webmasters in other countries.
6. Does Matt check for paid links that pass PageRank on each site he visits?
7. Find out one of the funniest questions that Matt recieved at a conference
8. What would Matt do if google killed all the spam.

enjoy!

Search Insider » Blog Archive » More Search Marketing Strategies for the Next Decade

I don’t know how I ended up at the post above, but I did and am about to go to bed, so I thought I would Press it, with our WordPress Blogging system.  This blog post is written well, and worth checking out for anyone interested in search marketing, the topic of this blog.  More details on this tomorrow or the day after.

Yesterday, I finally made a decision to start this series, by discussing the 4P’s of Marketing.  Why didn’t we do this before, you ask?  Simple answer is, we just weren’t ready.  We were trying to match our message with our target customers, which is easier said than done.  Our internal debate is over, we now know what to call the book, which customers to target, and how we want to differentiate ourself.   This background work is often the most ignored and most important marketing task, and it is called strategic positioning.  Some times it can take months or years to get it right, but if you don’t get this part right, you will get everything else wrong.

By the end of this blog, you will understand who your target customer’s are, how to find them, and who you want to be known as to them? Wow all that, after reading one blog article?

To make the process simple, we have to answer simple questions. So that is why we are focused on eSuccess, a wholistic approach to your blogging, marketing, website and search marketing. The key to your success is the right keywords it takes a long time to figure that out thought. And finding the right keywords is the “secret” to your eSuccess.

The world Secret is so over used right now, It is a bit controversial and successful at the same time. So a part of us wants to take advantage of this new world created by it. But, the other part wants to be original, and use the word “Key”, as that is more us. So we will be us, and you be you. But we do like to unveil the industries hidden secrets, not to mention, we love the Movie. knowing the secret keywords is not enough, you have to blog about them every day or as often as you can. What? The secret to your eSuccess is as easy as blogging? Well yes, but I have to spend a lot of hours explaining this to you in detail, with specific examples, and show you the results of why it is so. Otherwise, you won’t believe me, will you?

Than and only than, your pragmatic side, will understand the world of Search Marketing. It’s too bad, that you can’t buy the DVD yet, we actuallly started it already on “The Secret Key to your eSuccess”. Yes we did, but it’s not hollywood style and not-dramatic enough, yet. Till than, you are stuck with stupid looking text, no famous actors, no music, and no dramatic productions. But you might tell all of your friends and invite them to blog on MyTypes.com if our Key helps, you, and it will. And maybe, just maybe, our specific advice will help you promote your business and gain more customers? It will, if you do some basic easy work.

It’s all in a word as they say, “Secrets” or “Key”, or “Naam-Hindu for God and Om” and “Jesus”, “Allah”, and “Jew”, these words mean so much. The Keyword we choose is as important as the business online, keywords or words you choose to target for your business are everything. That is what the search engines will define you as. That is why it is the key to your eSuccess, eMarketing, SEO, and search marketing.

Why do large companies and smart people usually get to the top, not just the top of the search engines? The successful people understand strategic direction, they know who they are are, and they target the power of words.

To tie it back to this world of “The Secret”, it really is simple you have to use the keywords. And especially as the SEO industry is so secretive, it’s not that hard, they just want you to think it is. Isn’t that what techies do, they hold things a secret so that they can feel important, ouch–I really don’t like that. Everything you do in search marketing and eMarketing, and eSuccess has to do with the most appropriate keywords for your business. Believe it or not, all blogging platforms not just ours are your #1 SEO tool. You never thought it was that easy, hunh, well check out any great SEO they will have a blog won’t they? imagine that, all this for a 4 letter word.

So what are the proper keywords for your business? This process of fully understanding the remification of all aspects of your business target customer and their searches is called key word analysis within search marketing. Can you believe some companies charge up to hundreds of dollars for doing this for you, and/or sell you expensive software tools that are free to most SEO search marketing firms by Google, Overture, Yahoo etc.

It isn’t enough to know your keywords, but you also have to know their search volume traffic by Google. Yes, Google, and only Google at this point. Sorry MSN Live, and the other search people, you are not driving the new economy yet. Google is the search marketing king, please don’t waste your Search marketing dollars on most SEO Tools, if they are not free don’t use them. Also, don’t do any thing, well spend money on a SEO company, or Search Marketing Agency or Search Marketing Firm, until you are done with this series. Simply said, MSN, Yahoo, and all others just don’t have the traffic and web tools for the market research right now. If you are in the midst of making a SEO company decision email me, and I will give you my 2 cents object advice. I am trying to be a third party analyst on giving people objective advice on Search Marketing Firms. Therefore, I will write about them quite often in a blog.

So after the proper “Keywords, or Keyword”, you will need to focus on competition of advertisers and their search results. The secret unveiled of right keywords is not just not enough, as you already know, it is hard work getting to the mountain top. So if you expect it to be super easy, you may go home now. But, we do make it as easy as blogging. The key is you have to do it every day, and promote your blog, and write with real important content of proper keywords. You may have to work less if you use MyTypes.com blogging platform. Because we do a lot of this for you.

Sorry, but I had to cut this article in half, 4 more paragraph had to move to part 2. So to summarize, you need to find the proper keywords for your business and do a keyword analysis. Remember, if you don’t plan for your eSuccess and develop a plan, you won’t be successful. I heard this from Anthony Robbins back in 1992-3, in Minnesota. If you don’t plan for your success, you plan to fail. So the first thing in your plan for eSuccess is a keyword analysis. Come back tomorrow and we will go in to it in detail. If you want to get ahead go read up on it at our SEO tools area at LinkMint.com.

Are you worried about differentiating yourself from the millions of other blogs out there? After all, one could view the blogosphere as a massive haystack with a few valuable, glittering needles hidden inside it – the blogs with valuable content. The search engines help people discover the needles, but it’s up to the individual bloggers to get them to use the needles to sew and make something great (okay, I definitely stretched the limits of that metaphor).

One of the best ways to be sticky is to create a site that is a feast for the senses – an elegant design and bold images for the eyes, interesting videos and podcasts for the ears, and luscious language that paints a picture in your readers’ minds. Be creative with your word selection and try to choose the most precise, accurate terms to express your ideas.

First of all, a thesaurus is your friend, whether you rely on an printed and bound book or you use websites like Thesaurus.com. Thesauri are especially valuable when you notice that you’ve been using the same words too many times and as a result, your writing is flat, boring, and/or redundant. A quick trip to the thesaurus to find alternative options can liven things up in no time, and you might discover new terms that work even better than your go-to phrases.

You don’t have to neglect SEO and your keywords to writing appealing posts, either. First of all, it’s important to integrate a significant variety of keywords into your posts – using only two or three constantly is a dead giveaway that it’s SEO copy and many people will click away (and it doesn’t matter how much traffic SEO sends your way if they leave within a second or two). After all, don’t you want people to stick around, so you get multiple pageviews, interesting comments, and incoming links?

Another way to inspire your writing is to keep a folder or set of bookmarks filled with quality writing by people you admire. You can pull it out when you’re feeling unmotivated to get your creative juices flowing. Personally, I use del.icio.us for this – I have tags for “inspiration” and “writing” and “creativity” and more in my account. Social media is for more than just connecting people – you can use it to organize your ideas, sources, and inspirations.

Last but not least, it’s important to remember that the number one way to become a skilled writer is to practice, practice, practive, and then practice some more. If you’re serious about improving your work, it’s important to write something everyday, even if it’s just a short paragraph or two, and to read the work of other writers – you never know where you’ll pick up a new technique or interesting insight.  Remember no matter how much you SEO, search marketing is still about writing great content.