Ever create a directory of local businesses targeting a local keyword phrase through it?

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One of the problems that I see with trying to market things over the internet is that one is no longer competing with just local businesses. One's competition now becomes the entire world. Literally. The internet, in some respects, makes it even tougher to compete when the whole world becomes your marketplace.

In line with that, I have been thinking of ways to limit competition in various keyword niches and it dawned on me that one of the easiest ways to do that is to simply target keyword phrases that start with a particular city name.

Like for example...St. Paul Storage Self Service (I don't care about this phrase or city...might be great, might not be)

Or some such.

What I have noticed is that in cases like the aforementioned example a whole bunch of local business listings show up in Google.

So the first ten might be for local self storage places.

Now my question is, has anyone here had any success creating a directory of local businesses in a given category, targeting a local keyword phrase, and having the directory overtake the ranking of local businesses that stand by themselves in the SERP's?

In line with my example, creating a site that lists local self service storage places and giving each 2 pages to describe themselves and show their places through photos or whatever?

If you have done that, and successfully so, care to share some nuggets from your experience with the rest of us here?

I'd love to learn whatever I can from you.

Thanks.

Carlos
#search engine optimization #businesses #create #directory #keyword #local #phrase #targeting
  • I did not create the directory, but if you google north carolina wedding photographer you will see where a directory site is ranked number one. That is one of the keywords that I target for my photography site, and I am friends with a couple of the other photographers on the first page. All of us have spent a lot of time and/or money trying to beat it. We may beat them yet, but it won't be easy.
    • [2] replies
    • Hmm...interesting.

      That's not the two or three pages per business type of directory I had in mind but still...a good example of a directory beating out the real deal in terms of individual businesses.

      If you are talking about North Carolina Wedding Photographers they don't have much text content on the two pages I looked at on their site (the home page and one below). I mean they do have a fair amount when you lump in the individual pieces about each business but it's certainly not a huge amount of content as I would expect in a high ranking site.

      I haven't checked their incoming links but they might have a fair number of those.

      It actually looks rather minimal to me.

      Very interesting.

      I could create something like that for any number of local business categories.

      I wonder if I could simply duplicate what they have done in principal (without actually duplicating their site) and target wedding photographers in other cities where there is no directory at the top.

      I mean if they did it targeting North Carolina I should be able to target any number of more specific areas and do well. That might actually be a good way to do this.

      Look for directories at the top in whatever locales and then simply look for cities that do not have a directory in the top for the same business category. Build a site modeled after the top one's and voila! Top ranking for a proven category in another locale. Interesting.

      Do you have any idea what they charge for inclusion into their directory? Just curious.

      Carlos
      • [1] reply
    • Chris,

      I was doing some research on that site again tonight and decided to go take a look at your site. If I may make a couple of observations that might help you in beating the site in question, SEO wise....

      I am not an SEO expert for what it is worth...you barely have any text content at all on your home page. Google loves text. Keyword rich text. You've got some very nice photographs but I don't think nice photographs alone are going to get you higher in the Google rankings.

      Google cannot tell whether your photographs are any better than anyone else's so there is nothing in your photographs for Google to grab hold of that will allow it to determine if your site should be ranked higher than anyone's else's (based on your photographs alone).

      Take away your photographs and what you have left is what Google will primarily use on-site to compare your site to any other. Notice I said on-site. Off-site factors like incoming links to your site are another factor altogether.

      I would seriously suggest that you up the quantity of text that you have on your site. Articles on choosing a great wedding photographer, whatever. Just increase the text content.

      For what it's worth.

      Carlos
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    Ever create a directory of local businesses targeting a local keyword phrase through it?

    One of the problems that I see with trying to market things over the internet is that one is no longer competing with just local businesses. One's competition now becomes the entire world. Literally. The internet, in some respects, makes it even tougher to compete when the whole world becomes your marketplace. In line with that, I have been thinking of ways to limit competition in various keyword niches and it dawned on me that one of the easiest ways to do that is to simply target keyword phrases that start with a particular city name.