Local Competition is destroying me! Are these search terms RANKABLE?

rankey · 05-21-2011, 06:42 PM

I've ranked for a couple of sites before but am still new to the game.
I'm trying to rank a Florida based moving company and am in a tough spot.

1. I am not sure how to rank for local search other than fake reviews so that's all i'm doing.
See when I include a city or specific area in my search, Google places takes over the top 6 ranks and places means that it's largely luck-of-the-draw as many results are given in proximity to your default location.

2. Check out these pages (sorry can't post links!)
- floridamovers.org
- moving411.com
- southfloridamover.com
etc. are all the same CSS style, so the creator is the same.

They rank #1 for "Florida movers", "South Florida Movers", "Central Florida Movers" and don't seem to have any killer backlinks, just a very specialized network of various sites that are inter linked. They dominate a lot of the moving niche keywords for local search.

So I can't rank well for anything with "florida" in it (OR CAN I?) and I can't rank for anything with a city in my search term, so what do I do?

Can someone maybe suggest keywords or a strategy?

orvn · 05-22-2011, 06:56 AM

You can outrank them, but you'll have to put in time and effort.
They're a highly specialized network of crosslinked popular sites, so you're going to have to get creative here and search for powerful backlinks within the moving niche. I don't know how you normally build links but it's going to take a little more than just article marketing here.

I'd advise:
1) Get relevant backlinks by analyzing various top sites on the web within the moving niche and trying to get backlinks from some of the same sources.
2) Dead linking: finding broken links and offering to replace them in a very unabrasive manner.
3) Buy some good links from a reputable source who won't just remove them after a few months.

Take a hard look at how much you're being paid for this. If this is your personal site, by all means. If this is a client and you're getting a decent fee long term/ retainer, give it a go.

From as near as I can tell, there are two Lakeland's in the US. Lakeland, Florida and the larger Lakeland, New Jersey.

Have you considered ranking for Lakeland Florida Movers? Get within the top three and you'll be on top of Google places. Of course it's not quite as ambitious as Florida Movers, but the results are much more immediate.

05-21-2011, 06:42 PM	#1
rankey Warrior Member Join Date: May 2011 Posts: 14 Thanks: 5 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	Local Competition is destroying me! Are these search terms RANKABLE? I've ranked for a couple of sites before but am still new to the game. I'm trying to rank a Florida based moving company and am in a tough spot. 1. I am not sure how to rank for local search other than fake reviews so that's all i'm doing. See when I include a city or specific area in my search, Google places takes over the top 6 ranks and places means that it's largely luck-of-the-draw as many results are given in proximity to your default location. 2. Check out these pages (sorry can't post links!) - floridamovers.org - moving411.com - southfloridamover.com etc. are all the same CSS style, so the creator is the same. They rank #1 for "Florida movers", "South Florida Movers", "Central Florida Movers" and don't seem to have any killer backlinks, just a very specialized network of various sites that are inter linked. They dominate a lot of the moving niche keywords for local search. So I can't rank well for anything with "florida" in it (OR CAN I?) and I can't rank for anything with a city in my search term, so what do I do? Can someone maybe suggest keywords or a strategy?
	Learning the engines of search, one rank at a time. [Central Florida Movers]

05-22-2011, 06:56 AM	#2
orvn Advanced Warrior War Room Member Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: Toronto, Canada Posts: 756 Thanks: 86 Thanked 178 Times in 102 Posts Social Networking Contact Info	Re: Local Competition is destroying me! Are these search terms RANKABLE? You can outrank them, but you'll have to put in time and effort. They're a highly specialized network of crosslinked popular sites, so you're going to have to get creative here and search for powerful backlinks within the moving niche. I don't know how you normally build links but it's going to take a little more than just article marketing here. I'd advise: 1) Get relevant backlinks by analyzing various top sites on the web within the moving niche and trying to get backlinks from some of the same sources. 2) Dead linking: finding broken links and offering to replace them in a very unabrasive manner. 3) Buy some good links from a reputable source who won't just remove them after a few months. Take a hard look at how much you're being paid for this. If this is your personal site, by all means. If this is a client and you're getting a decent fee long term/ retainer, give it a go. From as near as I can tell, there are two Lakeland's in the US. Lakeland, Florida and the larger Lakeland, New Jersey. Have you considered ranking for Lakeland Florida Movers? Get within the top three and you'll be on top of Google places. Of course it's not quite as ambitious as Florida Movers, but the results are much more immediate.
	✄- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Orun Kabir Programming, security, design, writing, semantic web. SEO Jedi. [@orvn] [linkedin] [klout]