"Optimizing a site for local search marketing can be an overwhelming task."

Most companies have staff to deal with, vendors to juggle and ‘alphabet soup agencies’ to keep happy. Finding time to research and grasp strategic online search marketing opportunities unique to the Central Coast can be more difficult to handle under these circumstances than most people realize.

Here’s a quick little check list I put together to help grasp what SEO really is and isn’t.

Advice On Marketing Your Santa Maria Area Business Online: 5 Sure Fire Ways to ‘invite’ competitors to dominate you online

1) Stay offline.

Most local companies do not have a website at all. Just peruse the local Chamber of Commerce website and take a look for yourself. Many of the members do not own a website. This trend is the same with non-chamber businesses too.

After speaking with a number of local companies, I estimate that only around 10% of all Central Coast companies have a website of their own. This is sad.

Every local merchant, retailer, professional and service provider should have a website to give directions, transact sales where possible, and develop business relations with existing and potential new clients and customers..

It amazes me that in this day and age when it’s reported that 87% of businesses use the internet to find new vendors and 43% of consumers are expected by the year 2012 to make purchases influenced by the internet –if not directly transacted online– that anyone would choose to opt-out of this primarily free source of revenues.

And worse than walking away from free revenues, not building a site leaves doors wide open for competitors outside our area to rank high for searches and buyers that should belong to area businesses. This is a compounded loss.

If you own a business and do not yet own a website, you are in essence ’stealing’ resources from the Central Coast. The money that local buyers are sending to your competitors outside this area is money that is not being reinvested into our community.

Before you say to yourself that this is a little thing, consider that perhaps 90% of area businesses are making this same mistake. That just has to be a huge amount of money that is no longer available to strengthen our local economy. All because only a few local companies have bought out the time to build a site and even fewer appreciate how important it is for businesses to be online.

2) Buy into the myth that erroneously claims, ‘if you build it they will come’.

Of the local companies that do have websites, the majority lack an online presence.

What I mean is the site exists online, but they are poorly positioned in search results — no one can find the sites when searching common expected keywords.

So instead of local buyers and surfers finding local sites, the surfers end up landing on pages that have nothing to do with any Central Coast area company. Junk searches and out of area companies tend to show up first in searches.

Why is this? Because many local companies that do have sites online have imagined that internet marketing is a case of set it and forget it. That is, they think that just putting up a web page online or listing their web address in paid ads and on their business cards and stationary is going to drive massive amounts of traffic to the site. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Creating a great looking website that no one can find while searching online is like building a major superstore and placing it in the middle of the Amazon Rain Forest — sure it’s there, but who can find it?

With over six billion competing pages listed in Google alone, there’s slim chance many people will find a site that is poorly positioned for critical and relevant local keywords and phrases.

3) Hire a SEO ‘expert’ to spam search engines with useless content and dirty tricks

Using illegal "black hat" SEO tactics and scams can and will get your site blackballed. Eventually.

All it takes to bring you down is one disgruntled employee or annoyed vendor or competitor to report you. Your site will get blacklisted. Might as well shoot yourself in the foot at this point because now your site will never show up when people go online to buy.

A better approach to search marketing is to operate with full integrity. Never mislead visitors or try to trick the search engines. You’d only end up hurting yourself.

4) Believe that the extent of real SEO is limited to altering meta tags and other on-page elements within a site.

This is sad. I’ve lost track of the thousands of pages I’ve scanned in Google of so called SEO experts who charge huge four and five-figure fees to alter meta tags and other on page factors, while claiming that is what SEO is all about. It isn’t.

Trust me on this one. I’ve been online since before the world wide web existed. Back in the early days of online marketing on page factors was the key to top SEO. But over the past four or five years the search engines have gotten smarter. Way smarter.

The SEs know spammers falsify meta tags and other on page factors. That is why the winning search engines ignore keyword meta tags. Instead, the search engines’ algorithms focus on other critical and relevant data to build search results. Spamming your site with fake content doesn’t cut it. More is required. Much more.

5) Spend $10,000 a month for ‘guaranteed’ 1st page results in Google.

That lie is a scam! No one can guarantee #1 position on Google. But don’t take my word on it… here’s what Google says about guaranteeing 1st page results:

"Beware of SEOs that claim to guarantee rankings, allege a "special relationship" with Google, or advertise a "priority submit" to Google. There is no priority submit for Google. In fact, the only way to submit a site to Google directly is through our Add URL page or by submitting a Sitemap and you can do this yourself at no cost whatsoever."

So what are these ‘guaranteed’ companies guaranteeing? Non-competitive and low competition phrases, like your own company name. This is a no-brainer. Anyone who owns the ‘official’ site for a company should rank relatively high on Google very easily for that name. After all, there is only one ‘official’ site for anything and Google wants to provide the highest user value possible. That usually includes first of all delivering up the official sites for all relevant searches. This doesn’t cost $10k to accomplish. In fact it’s usually free and is automatic. Don’t fall for the scams.

Is Your Site Optimized
For The Search Engines?

If your site is not optimized for achieving highest local rankings possible, you’re missing opportunities to gain greater levels of traffic through search engines’ organic listings.

Here are the key steps to begin optimizing your site for the search engines:

• Research And Determine Relevant Keyword Selection For Your Target Market
• Review Your Site To Determine If You Are Providing Visitors and Search Engines With Optimal On-Page Elements
• Evaluate Main Content For Possible Changes Or Additions To Match Target Market Expectations
• Publish Relevant Offsite SEO Content To Attract Traffic From Social Media Portals And Boost SEO Positioning

Obviously these steps are time-consuming. Sure, you can choose to do this work yourself and experiment with the process in hopes of eventually landing on the correct combination to give you top local ranking. But as a business owner and decision maker your time is limited. Why bother? We can help.

As A First Step Towards Local Search Marketing Domination Grab Our SEO Starter Package

We will research and recommend a local SEO approach for you in harmony with the key steps above. Though our SEO Starter Package does not include directly writing and publishing relevant local-search optimized content for you, the report is complete and gives you a specific ‘game plan’ to show how to best achieve higher rankings and greater levels of traffic for your company through online search marketing.

Boost local web ranking and attract targeted local traffic and leads to your site with minimal effort or expense.

Click here to email Andre and find out if your site qualifies for this service.