Every business works hard to stay competitive in the online marketplace. Search engine optimization, the process of improving one’s search rankings, is an important method of gaining visibility for many Bozeman, Montana businesses. A business owner generally puts themselves into the searcher’s shoes to see how his or her business ranks amongst the competition. With local searches gaining a large number of website visits, even small companies can showcase their goods and services to interested buyers.

When it comes to local search engine optimization, often your best tool is the materials you already produce to help your potential customers become better educated about your product or service. By reworking these materials to focus on specific key phrases your internet marketing can be more targeted and results driven.

Do your homework, but don’t over-do it

Start by creating a list of the 10 key phrases that you want to rank for. There’s a myriad of keyword research tools available, but let’s begin with what you as a business owner intuitively know. Good key phrases are usually a few words that describe what you do. Think of it this way, “If I didn’t know what the name of my business was, what words would I use to search for it?”

Optimize for a single topic

The basic idea to rank for new search phrases is that we need to create written content for each one. Over time, as you begin to create content for each key phrase you’ll organically (read free) rank in Google and other search engines. Examples of content could be describing a new product in a familiar way or a blog post telling current happenings around the company.

For the purpose of this article let’s take use the search phrase “gluten free bread in Bozeman” as an example. Google’s not really interested in us as business – they’re focused on making sure the searcher finds information that’s relevant. Accordingly, we need to create written content that speaks to the topic at hand. Some examples of blog articles that would do well in search engines could be:

• 3 Bozeman Companies Who Bake Gluten Free Bread
• Finding Gluten Free Bread in Bozeman
• Ranking the Best Gluten Free Breads in Bozeman, Montana

Basically, any articles you create should be around the topic you want to rank for. Throughout the article you should include the specific phrase in the headline and in the first sentence. Then mention it in context several times throughout the article. Overall though we always want to write for the reader, not for the search engines. Good content always trumps sneaky search engine tactics.

Recycle content for search engine optimization

As I mentioned earlier in this article a great resource for content are materials that already exist! Perhaps a brochure or press release you’ve written can be re-tooled. Product information sheets and even explanatory emails that you consistently send to customers are both good sources of information. Keep the topic narrow and the content lean. Be sure to focus on your single topic throughout. Look at trade magazines, other website and even competitors as sources of ideas. Take into consideration any questions that you receive consistently or areas that you feel your consumer may be misinformed or under-educated.

Many organizations have materials that exist only in written form. These are great for search engine optimization! Find someone in your organization who could type the articles up at a hourly rate or even better, for a per article fee. High schoolers and other students are usually great for this task.

Great content means more backlinks

The other benefit of writing great content – again the major component of search engine optimization – is that people want to link to your content. Each website, Facebook like or social media mention that links to your article is considered a vote of confidence to Google. The more backlinks you have the higher your content will appear in search rankings.

I hope that you’ve found this brief article on stress free search engine optimization beneficial. Please leave your thoughts and questions in the comments below.

I’m running a few experiments that some of you may be interested in. The first is in regards to getting your business to rank well for local or regional searches. Searches like “website development + Bozeman, MT“. Currently, Manifest Creative ranks 5th for this keyword search on Google.com.

Following the excellent advice of search marketing guru Rae Hoffman, in her excellent post entitled “Before You Launch that Local Small Business Website“, I’ve begun to register our website with each of the free directories that she recommends. I’ll keep each of you posted on the final results, both from a rankings and web traffic standpoint.

Due to the fact that we’ve not created any new content, nor have we optimized any of our pages for these keywords, here is what I suspect will happen:
1) No significant improvement for Google search engine ranking.
2) Slight increase in web traffic.
3) Better inclusion in “local” search results across all search engines.

Many of the websites that I registered with feed other search engines such as Ask.com and Lycos.com with local/regional search engine results. The local results are the listings that are displayed before the traditional results when you search with a regional keyword (see screenshot below). Many search engines also include a map.

So why is this important? Many of us are selling our products, services or other goods to others within our own locales. Many internet users are getting more specific about what they search for. Most of us know that if we search Google.com for “car dealerships“, we’re not likely to find what we seek. However, if we search for “car dealerships in Bozeman, MT” we’re much more likely to find relevant results.

Additionally, since these local results are often found above the traditional organic search results,  they are even more valuable for their top of mind awareness. Besides, since back-links are one of the most important aspects of search engine optimization, it is never a bad idea to have an additional link back to your website.

One last experiment – one that you can help with!

I’ve submitted the Western Art & Architecture magazine article “Green By Design” to a social bookmarking website called Digg.com. For those of you unfamiliar with the site, the general idea is that you submit a link or story that you like. Others who like the article you’ve submitted Digg it as well – thus voting for it. The more Diggs a page receives, the higher in the rankings it moves – generating more website visits.

I am hoping that each of you will take just a moment to visit the following address, and if necessary, register with Digg.com to vote for this article. When you’re on the Digg.com website, you can see how many times it’s been dugg by looking at the icon to the left of the headline. Feel free to leave a comment about the article too on the Digg website – that way I’ll know to add you to my friends list!

Here’s the link:
http://digg.com/environment/Green_by_Design_2

I’ll report back to each of you to tell you about the results, and perhaps we’ll all learn a thing or two about the power of social media!