WWED? (What Would EP Do?) Show me your stuff!

[rmccarley]

I have a client that lives on the county line. The majority of her customers by quantity are in Sacramento county but the *ahem* money customers are mainly in Placer county... but not all of Placer as it's a huge region that takes up a large chunck of Northern California. This territory encompasses Most of Sacramento County but not Sacramento itself.

Here's the breakdown:

Placer County towns/cities: Folsom, El Darado Hills and Sorano which is the swanky part of EDH but has it's own name so they can charge an extra 30 grand per house (you really don't get what you pay for sometimes...), and Roseville.

Sac County towns/cities: Orangevale (which is the "buffer" between Folsom and Sac County and is considered somewhat white trash but also happens to be where the client's brick & morter is), Citrus Heights, and Fair Oaks.

How would you SEO this site in the early stages to ensure you get geotargetted traffic?

I'd like to say "Sacramento County" but that isn't really accurate and I doubt anyone types that stuff in the SEs anyway. Plus it excludes the cash customers in Placer.

[dazzlindonna]

Not sure what kind of business this client runs, but let's pretend it is web design. The site could have several paragraphs and/or pages devoted to a portfolio of work (or testimonials) with each one mentioning the town or county.

So, if the client did a site for Joe's Warehouse in Folsom, the page could talk about the work she did for them, and mention somewhere that it was in Folsom, CA (Placer county). Same for any clients she did work for in Sorano, Orangevale, etc. etc.

If a portfolio or testimonial doesn't work well with this client's type of business, then perhaps I'd need to know a bit more about the type of biz in order to come up with some better ideas.

[rmccarley]

Wow, what a great idea! Customer testimonials with geo info... Thanks tons for that DD.

And it's a photography studio if that helps.

[dazzlindonna]

Well, a photography studio should work great with a portfolio of sorts. Surely, they've photographed a graduate in front of a tree in some park somewhere in some nearby town, or a couple on their wedding day in front of a pavilion in some other town. Easy geolocation stuff.

[gabs]

For sure photo's imho are one of the best way to geotarget k/ws..

Testimonials / newsletters and whats going on in "xxx" work well to..

Have you run any adwords tests to see what the roi what be like on these terms ?

Sometimes ppc on its own it well worth it if your only reach a few visitors a day..

[earlpearl]

Last August, Bragadoccio, over at cre8asite printed this analysis of a google patent on local search; http://www.cre8asiteforums.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=26893.

I am almost positive this patent has been effect for a year, and went into effect with the SuperBowl update of 2005. If I had more time I would print my observations on it.

At that time a variety of local sites zoomed up in the serps and replaced all sorts of directory sites and massive sites with scarcely any reference to the business/geo location.

DD's suggestions are great. Any way you can populate the website with names of the towns, county, and region, and have those pages link back to the location page with your address will give you lots of geo coverage. Besides the portfolio, you can generate directions to the studio from all over the region with mention of town names

One other thing that is extremely helpful is extensive keyword analysis into every possible way visitors look up that topic. I'll bet there are myriads of ways people search on that topic. That takes time.

Finally, one other thing that can work is a local directory with vendors that often work with a photography studio, such as every type of vendor connected to weddings. That will work to draw traffic, plus it is an easy way to have links sent back to your site.

Good luck.

Dave

[earlpearl]

RMC:

From observation this patent works to overcome the sandbox. Get your location information in. Follow Bragadoccio's analysis. I've seen good use of this overcome the "new site" sandbox filter for its keywords w/the geo phrase.

Dave