Why The Narrow Search Terms?
I get asked this a lot by clients: “Why am I getting a site restricted to a small area? I cover xyz locations too”. For this we need to look at the slightly larger picture – is it better to have 80% of a particular search phrase that is localized, or 1% (and in many cases less) of a much broader search term? Unless you have a budget in the £1000’s you are wasting your time trying to hit the big search terms. Not many people like to hear that, but it’s the truth, and one that unless you are willing to accept, is the #1 stumbling block when trying to establish a web presence for your local business – even if your ‘local’ business covers up to 10 localities, for example.
As an affiliate marketer for the last 10 years, I can drill down surfer trends so that while the visitor count to your website may seem low, these visitors are extremely targeted and ultimately bring more income to your business, regardless of what line of work you are in. Let’s take the search term and site Cheshunt Solicitors as an example;
You, the customer, live in Cheshunt and need a solicitor. In 90% of cases this means unless you already use a solicitor, you need to find one, and instead of using the local paper, or yellow pages/thomson directory, will go to google.co.uk and type in what you need:
“cheshunt solicitors”
You may have a slight alteration of that, and decide to type in “solicitors in cheshunt”, “solicitor in cheshunt”, or “cheshunt solicitor”
ALL of those terms bring the site created and optimized for Google as either the #1, #2, or #3 result, with many other terms bringing the site on page 1 as well.
These are the search terms people specifically looking for YOUR service or product are using to find your competitors instead of you, and those customers are handing over money to those service/product suppliers. This is why narrow search terms ultimately bring your business the paying customers that put more money in YOUR pocket every single time, no matter what your profession, and without exception!