n00b questions on SEO - multiple keywords.

[alturic]

Ok, so I won't lie I've been on information overload upon finding BHW and have literally (probably not the smartest idea) 25+ threads bookmarked already in just a few days but ultimately the question is simple (and not really easily found the answer to) but how hard is it to rank for multiple keywords on a statewide level?

For example, let's say I market smartphones, Apple, Samsung and Nokia how hard would it be to rank for (PURELY in a specific state) "iPhone"? Basically it's a B&M store that only cares for one states visits as no-one outside of my state can even purchase my product from me.

So how futile is it to have my "homepage" rank for "iPhone", "Galaxy" and "Lumia" and then the actual "iPhone", "Galaxy" and "Lumia" sub-page to rank for their respective products keys?

I don't know why I feel it's going to be easier ranking for those searches strictly in my state, but from a beginner SEO standpoint it makes sense that it would?

Also, I'm sure just to get link-juice/back-links, it's still extremely important to get the site out there to world-wide sites pertaining to those categories and when I am submitting them to say an "Apple" specific page, is it smarter/better to link to the actual apple sub-page or link to the home-page?

As I said, it's extremely n00b of me to ask, but I'd assume you rarely have the chance to rank for "all" of your keywords on your homepage but rely on the sub-pages getting linked to boost the ranking (inherently?) of the home-page?

Take for example (and no, this isn't my business ) HG, according to SEOG (only site I know of to easily show keyword rankings) ranks #1 for "reseller hosting", #2 for "vps hosting" among a few others so (at a simplistic level) the actual "reason" they rank for those is tons of pages link back to those respective pages outside of the on-site SEO stuff being all in order? Now, when you "start" getting ranked, let's say your SERP is 100 the primary (only?) thing that will start ranking you higher and higher is more and more links, no? I mean something like Web Hosting (again, example) has such a static pricing/features page it's not like there's weekly updates to those pages so google continuously sees "fresh" content right?

I'm not looking for hand-holding, really I'm not, but if I asked what are the top 5 things I should do to be on my way to getting ranked for "apple iphone" in New York what would be the one-line responses?

The reason I'm posting this in white-hat is because I'm not looking to try and get the site penalized/de-indexed and while I'm sure it'll take time I'm not looking to do anything sketchy to get ranked.

 

[Adam718]

Add me on Skype. I'm leaving my office in about an hour, and when I get home I can give you some 1 on 1 time to try and help you out. (I'm not selling anything lol)

 

[bartosimpsonio]

Ranking for iPhone or any of those terms you mention as examples is not going to be easy. You should definitely go for easier long tail phrases as you're a beginner. For example, "iphone SOMEAPP tutorial" is a billion times easier to rank than "iphone". In fact, I'd simply give up on that single worded kw

Good luck.

 

[MafiaBoss]

forgive me for hijacking the thread, but i have a question related to OP post.

OP is trying to rank a keyword depending on state, i didn't heard anything like google.ny, google.la or google.ca etc

you can only rank keyword on country domain like google.com (US & international), google.ca (canada) etc

So my question is that can you rank a keyword for a state for example in OP case can he rank a keyword [iphone] specifically for California.

Like if a person open google.com from california and put iphone in search box and the OP website outranking the iPhone Official website.But if the person open google.com from Arizona and put [iphone] the results are changed.

Can anybody explain this.... experienced members are welcome?

 

[adworkmedia]

MafiaBoss - I believe the only location SEO similar to what you mentioned above is by using a Google place listing. You could create a google listing locally for a city (probably not on a state level) and then use the listing to link back to your site. It would probably be best to focus on the largest cities in a state that you are targeting.

alturic - It is probably best to use sub pages to target the different keywords that you are using. Sub pages can still rank pretty well.

 

[alturic]

Ranking for iPhone or any of those terms you mention as examples is not going to be easy. You should definitely go for easier long tail phrases as you're a beginner. For example, "iphone SOMEAPP tutorial" is a billion times easier to rank than "iphone". In fact, I'd simply give up on that single worded kw

Good luck.

Well, I'm not trying to rank for iPhone as you know and while iPhone would be the "category" of smartphone (business)... ahh hell, alright so my friend is an insurance agent, and while I despise them, he's one of the few "good" guys, anyway, he sells auto, home, life, business, umbrella, etc.

o he's only registered to sell insurance in his state which is why that's all he cares about ranking for but using the Google keyword tool, it seems (I thought this was extremely odd) "car insurance" searches in his state was like 100 per month, literally. I think "business insurance" was something crazy low/odd with 150 or so and while I'm really unsure if that few amount of people search for "insurance" (I think that MIGHT have been something like 200) in his state, the reason why those numbers seemed odd to me was because "insurance" was searched for 600k times per month in "All locations" according to google? Hell "cheap car insurance" was searched for 300k times only. That just seems like somethings wrong unless people really don't search for insurance online... either way the goal is to rank his pages (particularly) in his state of course for those keywords "car insurance", "life insurance", etc. So going with "car insurance iowa" or "car insurance state minimum iowa" (not his state btw) would be even more pointless since it's just narrowing down those numbers even more.

So unless both of us (more-so him) can't think of what people would search for in terms of insurance even doing "statename auto insurance" comes back with 480 searches on avg. So unless that's like 480,000 and it just doesn't say that I'm beginning to think even bothering with TRYING to rank for something like that is pointless...

 

[alturic]

snip to get around moderation words

Well the one thing (probably already know this?) is that search results are different from different locations. I'm in a different state than him and our results are fairly different than the others.

 

[MafiaBoss]

Well, I'm not trying to rank for iPhone as you know and while iPhone would be the "category" of smartphone (business)... ahh hell, alright so my friend is an insurance agent, and while I despise them, he's one of the few "good" guys, anyway, he sells auto, home, life, business, umbrella, etc.

o he's only registered to sell insurance in his state which is why that's all he cares about ranking for but using the Google keyword tool, it seems (I thought this was extremely odd) "car insurance" searches in his state was like 100 per month, literally. I think "business insurance" was something crazy low/odd with 150 or so and while I'm really unsure if that few amount of people search for "insurance" (I think that MIGHT have been something like 200) in his state, the reason why those numbers seemed odd to me was because "insurance" was searched for 600k times per month in "All locations" according to google? Hell "cheap car insurance" was searched for 300k times only. That just seems like somethings wrong unless people really don't search for insurance online... either way the goal is to rank his pages (particularly) in his state of course for those keywords "car insurance", "life insurance", etc. So going with "car insurance iowa" or "car insurance state minimum iowa" (not his state btw) would be even more pointless since it's just narrowing down those numbers even more.

So unless both of us (more-so him) can't think of what people would search for in terms of insurance even doing "statename auto insurance" comes back with 480 searches on avg. So unless that's like 480,000 and it just doesn't say that I'm beginning to think even bothering with TRYING to rank for something like that is pointless...

ranking for a keyword that has high competition will be pointless, unless you have some great deal of money to spend on.
also do remember to check for exact amount of searches Not Broad because it is 2 different things, go for exact and see what are the numbers there.

 

[alturic]

ranking for a keyword that has high competition will be pointless, unless you have some great deal of money to spend on.
also do remember to check for exact amount of searches Not Broad because it is 2 different things, go for exact and see what are the numbers there.

Hmm, using the new keyword tool, I'm pretty sure I did it right but:

auto insurance, [auto insurance], "auto insurance" all come back with 135k a piece... so I'll ask for you to lend a hand and give me a quick example of how you would try to rank for a high competition market like auto insurance while really only caring to rank based on the state, potentially even region? Example: if I simply plug "auto insurance" and shows 135k, and then goto "New York auto insurance" it drops to 260 searches only. There's gotta be something wrong with the new keyword tool or do people in his state (and truthfully in the US) not simply search for "auto insurance"? lol.

 

[MafiaBoss]

"auto insurance" is a broad term and you can expect 135k a piece.
while if you move further down to long tail keywords like "New York auto insurance" you can expect some low results. thats why it is better to rank for long tail keywords, if you want to head toward high competitive market like insurance.

i doubt that auto insurance, [auto insurance], "auto insurance" will all come up with the same result, maybe a bug in google system.

To be honest i didn't checked out the new google keyword tool yet, i heared about it and last time when i checked my adwords account i saw there was a message that google will be retiring the keyword tool soon.

i hope some experienced member can help you out, otherwise you are welcome to use the search box i am sure you will find lots of good threads with quality information already shared.

there are also one or two keyword tool available in the freebie section try them out, i forget the name of them but i am sure they are shared here on BHW.

 

[proson]

Well depends on your purposes and budget to be spent. Ranking a generic keyword will take either a very long time or a lot of money.
So it is better if you can narrow down your keyword to more specific terms. But the problem of specific terms are that they will not give you
more traffic than the generic terms. So you will need to SEO a lot or more specific terms if you are targeted for the traffic.

For me I will always use PPC to find out what my readers are actually searching for before I step in to do any SEO, otherwise you
are going to waste money which give you a little result than you expected.

 

[Nigel Farage]

Add me on Skype. I'm leaving my office in about an hour, and when I get home I can give you some 1 on 1 time to try and help you out. (I'm not selling anything lol)

You would do well to take this offer. 1 on 1 is pure gold. You will never teach yourself as fast as you can learn with a mentor/tutor, as you will waste a lot of time learning that which is less important, and not spend that time laying a foundation upon all other knowledge can be built.

It is good you are asking questions, however you are asking the wrong questions. For some reason, "success" as you imagine it to be involves conquering a region of geographical territory that has the same boundries of a state. As a general rule, when wanting to learn how to do will within Google's universe, one must first recognize they are in Google's universe, and then see things from Google's perspective.

Google does not provide search results based on state boundries. I suspect the "common sense" (and wrong) assumption is that if doing well in local (city) search results is good, "the next level" would be state. Nice try newb, but no, lol...

You are the second person today that I have had to tell this message to. You must walk before you can run. You must learn to rank will in local search results before "expanding", you must rank well in one keyword before trying "multiple" keywords, you must do the basics of SEO before getting into the exotic methods, etc...

It's no so much a question of what to do, as when to do it. EVERYTHING "can" be done. And of that, a lot of it SHOULD be done. But newbs don't need to know what all the options are, nor which options should be done, but instead they need to learn WHEN to do WHAT. This should be your focus. When you are ready for more advanced knowledge, you will have a compelling reason to ask, i.e. money is directly at stake vs. idle curiosity that can be satisfied by knowledge, but that knowledge does not produce an immediate increase in income.

Again, I've said this before:

1) Citations
2) Nap consistency

These are the only things a Local SEO need concern himself with for at least the 1st month.

SEO in general is a self-taught exercise. You need to develop and practice the habit of independent study, the ability to discern what might be useful from what is probably marketing bullshit and drivel. There are a lot of idiots that truly believe they understand SEO because they keep reading the same stupid shit over & over again, and figure that since they repeat that shit, they somehow know something also.

Which is great, except for the fact that it's shit. Repeated over & over & over again, until it takes on it's own life, and becomes "real". But only in the minds of the retards that believe it. Google is reality. Gurus are selling illusions and pseudotruth. Do what Google wants, and you will get results.

Re-reading through your post(s), it appears to me that you are trying to assimilate a lot of knowledge, some of which is simply wrong. And also, you aren't going to be able to condense anything into one-liners, etc... Google doesn't deliver mobile device-related search results based on state. Users do not do searches for "iPhone Florida" or "android Texas" so even if you were able to achieve what you want (you won't), there wouldn't be any money in it anyways.

You don't start with geography, you start with keyword search volume. You look for the keyword variations that have the most search volume and THAT determines what you optimize for. Okay, that's all for now. I'm going to do a search for "Texas Pizza" and then drive 500 miles to Dallas to pick one up.

 

[alturic]

snip

Hmm, I see your point Nigel but we just assumed (yea yea, assumed) that being google delivered different search results based on geography for the same keyword ranking for the keyword in the same state as the searcher would be the way to go.

About the only part I disagree with you on it "Texas Pizza" purely because (especially for Pizza... insurance) you'd only want to know local places that sold pizza in texas (or dallas or wherever you lived) and not simply the person who ranked for "amazing pizza" even thought the pizza shop is in Florida...

In other words, at least for insurance, outside of state minimum type people, apparently a local agent is a big deal. I always tell him I still would never goto him instead of ordering directly from the companies site but 6 figure residuals say otherwise.

Thanks for your reply, I do appreciate the info.

 

[Nigel Farage]

Hmm, I see your point Nigel ...

I don't think you do. You are still trying to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assimilation_(psychology)#Constructivist_theory what I just said into what you think, and what you think you already know. It's like oil & water. You cannot mix correct with incorrect. And it's not a good idea to "disagree" with someone that knows something, and is trying to teach you something. This isn't a conversation. This is one-way communication, and your responses aren't required. I've just told you that 3 + 2 = 5, and voicing your opinions on how you think it is 6 only serves to reinforce the wrongness in your own mind.

[video=youtube_share;xIXfRm4mKc4]http://youtu.be/xIXfRm4mKc4[/video]

 

[Shift5]

To Nigel Farage, this may be off topic but I've been reading your posts(you even post to my thread, lol I am not autoposter man, just a newbie in BHW) and it seems that you are well aware of what is Local SEO. I also do Local SEO as you may remember I post about on basic citation building. I just want to ask if you can share any new techniques/trends in Local SEO/ GP ranking.

My approach in Local SEO is citation building, posts reviews and GEO tags. Can you share what would be the latest trends today?
Thanks

 

[Nigel Farage]

...lol I am not autoposter man, just a newbie in BHW) and it seems that you are well aware of what is Local SEO. I also do Local SEO as you may remember I post about on basic citation building.

In general, certain things attract me, and other things have the opposite effect. I am attracted to people that put effort into posts, ask substantive questions, ask relevant/important/interesting questions, and also I try to intuit the mind behind the posts. Some people appear to have "raw talent" which I have a tendency to migrate towards. So, if I suspect someone's post are auto-posted, that means something significant. Lack of effort, lack of substance, lack of "fire", etc... It doesn't take much to post "Thanks. Interesting post." in fact it's a real good way to get permanently dismissed.

Who wants to spend time trying to help someone that thinks 3 bland words are worth 1) their time to post and 2) Someone else's time to read. Keep note of this, newbs. This is how you (at least) get ignored, and sometimes in a fit of middle-aged petulance, you can get neg-repped.

Conversely, some people are dishonest. They claim to have expertise that they do not. Worse, they claim to have expertise and do not even know they do not, which makes them dishonest AND stupid.

I believe in relationships. 90% of what I have learned in life since High School as come about only by 1) The things I have read online and 2) The people that I have made friendships with, with 3) The exception of other people's bad example, as a lesson on what not to do, who not to be, etc...

So, if one would like to learn what I have learned, and in the manner that I have learned it, one should consider adopting my methods of learning. It's all I have to offer. There are no shortcuts. There are no current "trends". There is what we think we know now, there is what we thought we knew then and there is what we think we might now in the future. There is very little durable knowledge that one can "rest" on, save for those few basic points that I try to hit as hard as possible, and as often as possible. They are:

1) Local Citations
2) NAP consistency

I am no "expert", but I know the basics. And these basics transcend the importance of everything else for the following reasons.

1) That which is thought to be true is frequently false. And everyone is wrong, completely wrong. If you are lucky, the least respected person that you know is the only one that knows this truth, and if you are intelligent you might learn from them and find out what you don't know.

2) That which is thought to be true frequently becomes false or useless. People that hang on to these truths fill their minds with that which is useless, and therefore are incapable of learning that which is useful. Sherlock Holmes said that your mind has only a finite capacity for storage, and if you store useless knowledge there, you have less room for the useful knowledge. I agree with him.

3) That which is thought to be true is less useful than other things that are KNOWN to be true. No matter what the truth is, there is a second scale (think algorithm here) that needs to be applied. How IMPORTANT is the truth? How USEFUL is the truth? It doesn't matter if SILOed pyramid backlink architecture works or not, if the local business doesn't even have the most important citations. It's a question of timing, and priority. Given a limited amount of time, does one do that which is less important, while ignoring that which is more important?

Finally, local results are competitive. One should always consider doing what the winners do. One should also consider avoiding the losers mistakes, and to be able to differentiate between a winner, and a loser that hasn't lost yet. Stupid blackhat methods that work for a couple of months only look like they are "winning", right up to the point where Google kicks the listing back to page 5, or worse. There are several battered BHW members here that have suffered this fate by "SEO gurus", so be warned the danger isn't "somewhere, over there", it's right next to you in these threads that you read. It's THAT guy, or THIS person. Right there. Read the words. Read between the lines. Read what ISN'T discussed. Think about the consequences that might happen if one blindly, stupidly follows the advice of some self-appointed guru that (coincidentally) makes money for "knowing" something that you do not.

It requires a sound, analytical mind to avoid getting fucked. It also requires some patience, a willingness to do your own research, the courage to admit you do not know things and the humility to ask questions that appear to be very stupid and basic.

Such as:

(And this is a classic example of the kind of thing I'm referring to, and a real-world, as in RIGHT NOW, question that I have, and cannot answer, and it's the kind of thing that a person that has an ego invested into the idea of being a guru would be embarrassed to ask. I lack all of that, because I would rather know than appear to know.)

Multiple websites for a local business: Why would anyone want to do that?
I don't see this question anywhere, and I can't find an answer. I read opinions on the matter that seem insubstantial, proffered by people that appear to want to appear to know, but fold like a house of cards when questioned. Or they get sly and deliberately avoid the heart of the questions, and instead answer other questions that were not asked, which creates the illusion of knowing something, while hiding the ignorance of the person that doesn't know the answer to the question(s) that were asked.

Why would any local business want a 2nd or 3rd website?

I say it's a bad idea. I say that any Google juice is important, and it makes no sense to divide that juice between multiple websites. I find absolutely no good reason to have multiple money-sites.

Another response is that it serves a a tier-1 in a pyramid. Yet, I can find no compelling reason why a seemingly commercial website (a plumber, for example) would exist as a a standalone entity, requiring some kind of presumably blackhat SEO in order to feed juice to the real money site, when another web 2.0 would do just as well.

The ONLY reason I can see to do this is if the 2nd site feeds link juice to an inner page, done under the pretext of a 301 redirect, ostensibly due to a business changing locations, business names, etc... but I'm not sure how that would stand up to a manual review.

So, there's your "trend". It's what I currently don't know, and that's about as "expert" as I can get.

 

[Techxan]

I think I can help out here. The way you rank for a state of the us, is to do first what Niigel says, Citations and NAP consistency. And by consistency, I mean identical.

This will bring in the easiest customers you can target, those in the local area. This will help start getting customers for the business while you work out on your plan.

Take everyone's advice so far: before you even go into this, you need to make sure there is traffic for the search term you want to target in exact match for the state you want to target. As others have said, to Google you are either global (at the search engine level: .com, .CA, ect) or local (Tied to your profile, geo modifiers in the search query, and IP resolution). If there is no exact exact match search volume, there is no reason to target that keyword. PERIOD.

The way you rank for the states is through the on page SEO focus.

You need to craft your page information so that the exact phrase is targeted in the title, headings, and content. You need the states you are targeting be mentioned almost as many times as your keyword phrase, without sounding like crap. This is why I say "Craft". You need to have the state name to apear more or less all across the page.

By this I mean you don't want to put it in the title and heading, but nowhere else. Use it through out the page. Craft your page so that your keyword appears in phrase match across the page content.

If you are targeting "New York car Insurance", in addition to using that phrase, craft the content so that these words are used in that order as you read the page.

You might say:

"If you have ever watched a New York cab driver cut off a car in traffic, you will understand the importance of having auto insurance in. The state of New York requires at least liability insurance..."

When you do tis, you target the phrases (in phrase match) "new york car insurance", "New york auto insurance", "car insurance new york" and "auto insurance new york," and the non geo modified query "Car insurance" and "auto insurance" for the IP resolutions.

Create a page that targets this phrase only, and craft your content to include the geo modifier you are trying to target. Do not rely on the geo lock, put it into the content.

You can also target zip codes this way, if there is traffic.

Hmm, I see your point Nigel but we just assumed (yea yea, assumed) that being google delivered different search results based on geography for the same keyword ranking for the keyword in the same state as the searcher would be the way to go.

About the only part I disagree with you on it "Texas Pizza" purely because (especially for Pizza... insurance) you'd only want to know local places that sold pizza in texas (or Dallas or wherever you lived) and not simply the person who ranked for "amazing pizza" even thought the pizza shop is in Florida...

In other words, at least for insurance, outside of state minimum type people, apparently a local agent is a big deal. I always tell him I still would never goto him instead of ordering directly from the companies site but 6 figure residuals say otherwise.

Thanks for your reply, I do appreciate the info.

@Nigel Farage

Why would any local business want a 2nd or 3rd website?

To target a sub niche of their main product that has substantial search volume.

Example. Handyman also does carpet water extraction and sewage removal, a very high value contract. He also does hardwood floor resurfacing, again a high ticket service.

Ranking for hardwood floor and waste water on the handyman site will be much more difficult that ranking a site about each service..

 

[Shift5]

Appreciate your response Nigel, thank your very detailed explanation, as always. I was just trying to may be discuss the "latest approach on local SEO". I am no expert in local SEO, just the basics. Thank you for reminding me for sticking on to the basics.

And by the way, when people respond on short sentences don't judge them too quickly. May be people want to speak straight. May be they don't want to beat around the bush and romanticize their ideas by putting fancy words on it.

 

[Nigel Farage]

<this is exactly the kind of crap I was talking about>

Instead of all of that, you could have briefly given superficial thanks and jumped right into some more questions, which would have benefited everyone, most particularly yourself. Instead, all I have to respond to is you, you, you instead of SEO, SEO, SEO. Talk less, listen more. Post less, read more. State less, ask more.


@ Techsan
I'm mulling all that over. I can see how the semantic associations might seem dissimilar from a human, marketing perspective. Are you saying Google also chokes on a site that does cake decorating AND computer repair, both on the same website? I'm trying to put all of this into SILO architecture. I have SILOs on the brain. As the youngsters with their saggy pants hanging off their ass say, I've got "SILO fluids on the brain".