January 18, 2011

About a week ago, I had a meeting with the people at Tony Rauti Luxury Homes to discuss search engine optimization. They had hear the term before, but weren’t to familiar with what it meant and what went into helping your website get a higher ranking in Google. After going through all the basics with them (backlinks, content, updates etc), I asked them to choose 3-5 keywords that they would like to target. Here is what they came back to me with; “custom homes”, “custom home builder” and “tony rauti homes”. I explained to them that these weren’t terrible choices however; they were a little too general.

A local company like theirs wouldn’t want to be #1 in Google or any other search engine for a term like “custom homes” because that type of term could show up in any city, province or even country. They have no interest in someone looking for a custom home in Vancouver because they are local builders. I explained to them that they should target more local keywords and gave them the following examples; “windsor custom home builder”, “windsor ontario homes” and “windsor construction”. I explained how targeting keywords for local clients wouldn’t only be easier but would also make the most of the traffic that comes to their site.

I suggest this for anyone building a website for a local business. Choose your keywords related to the location of the business, not the general keyword you’re hoping for. There will be a lot less competition and far more “bang for your traffic buck”.