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Question for offliners!

by Nightengale
6 replies
Hi Warriors,

For those of you who do offline work, what keywords do you try to rank for? Do you try to rank for "advertising" or "marketing" keywords, or for something like "web design" type keywords?

I look at websites as a hard-core direct response tool. So when I think websites, I think "marketing." However, I know the general public (and Joe Blow Business Owner) still often thinks of a website as a digital brochure and thinks "design" when looking for web services. Our language isn't necessarily their language and to be found by them, we need to speak their language.

Just curious!

Michelle
#offliners #question
  • Profile picture of the author diegoortiz
    try this : "your business" services

    for example, if im offering search engine optimization, than i would work my ass off to get number1 for SEO services

    graphic design services
    translation services
    online marketing services

    i could go on and on....
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    • Profile picture of the author Nightengale
      I wouldn't have thought of putting it quite like that. Thanks for the feedback!

      Anyone else?

      Michelle
      Signature
      "You can't market here. This is a marketing discussion forum!"
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  • Profile picture of the author HypnoHugh
    Hi Michelle

    You've hit on a key problem - a lot of people needing help with online marketing are not actually searching for it.

    It's good to rank for a few good key words so you can demonstrate your track record & credibility, but I don't rely on it for most business.

    The way I find local search terms is to base it on a big city & then exchange it for your local town /city name. A lot of local search terms don't show up in Google stats even though they are searched on.

    I used marketing, online marketing, advertising & SEO.

    Other qualifiers are agency & company.

    Hugh
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    • Profile picture of the author netkid
      Michelle,

      I do a search for "business service"/"city" and then I go to the top sites in this category.

      Then I take a look at the page source and get the keywords they used and take the top 10 keywords from those sites to rank for. What you need to do is "reverse" engineer what the top local sites are using to rank high on page one of the search engines.

      If you emulate what the top local sites are doing to get top ranking, you are going to dramatically improve your client's site as well.
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      • Profile picture of the author AbsoluteDominance
        Michelle,

        I hate to say this but I don't really SEO my site very much. I have found that most of the people that I want to do business with are not actively searching for my services.

        The type of work we do requires what is called Interruptive Marketing.
        Most business owners don't realize that they need to be doing search engine optimization or are not actively looking for it so you need to contact them.

        Don't rely on the number of people searching for it as many of them are going to be people just like yourself- not buyers.

        I have had a number of clients recently who were also looking for website design or social media management or facebook marketing/advertising.

        These are some things I find useful.

        I also noticed that when people come to me through my website they have been doing a lot of "research" on it and have found some really bad information about it online. They also tend to be the people who have more time and less money. They want to learn from you so that they can implement it themselves- using you to teach them for free and them to attempt to implement with little or no results.

        Just some observations.

        Boss
        Signature

        Some times you just have to take life by the throat and shake a little more out.

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        • Profile picture of the author Pointer
          I agree with what some of the other have said. My best clients are usually ones not actively looking for what I do. I've often found that those looking online are typically lower budget clients. Some of them know a little bit about web design or SEO, but just enough to be dangerous! I'd rather find the business owners who don't know what SEO is - because they've been busy concentrating on their core business and making it successful!
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