Local Search and Optimisation

Recently I was reading yet another article about the trouble in Zimbabwe and how it affected South Africa. I was surprised to find that many people didn’t realize that South Africa was a country in its own right, but most thought that Zimbabwe was a country in South Africa or were all part of one and the same. While I find this amusing (as both South Africa and Zimbabwe are very much individual independent countries) I did realise that not everybody is 100% clued up on their geography.

Okay so what does this have to do with search? As many small businesses are unable to supply the entire world with their product or service many try to localise their client base. This is carried over into their website. It’s not easy for a plumber in London to be making call-outs to China. While this is an extreme example I think you get the point.

When it comes to optimising websites for local searches it is important to always include the area name in your key phrases. So instead of optimising your website for say experienced plumber after hours you might optimise it for experienced plumber after hours in London. But as you may have guessed that while the tail grows longer you are expected to have fewer visitors. Don’t forget that long tail keywords do convert better though. However at this point you may also have noticed that you could start to shorten your key phrase. Now it would be easier to obtain top rakings for the phrase experienced plumber in London or even at a push simply plumber in London.

However remember that while local search is intended for localised visitors not all qualified visitors will be locals. Okay, so that sounds a little confusing but consider the fact that not everyone searching for your services will be in the same town while doing the searching. Sometimes people need to do a search of a location and services that they may need while away on holiday, business or even for someone else. Imagine a chronic diabetes sufferer needing to know of the nearest doctor while on vacation or someone needing to know where the nearest laundromat is while on vacation in a small seaside town. Both of these searches may be done with only a little information on the actual location of where they may be.

I have often gone on vacation to small towns where many of the nearest services were in the next town. Often people won’t even know which suburb of a town your business may be located in. I think of Johannesburg and while I know that there are literally thousands of tiny suburbs, many people (and yes, even I am guilty of this) simply lump them all together as Johannesburg.

So what does this all mean for localised search?

Never assume that the visitors know exactly where you are. If your town only has a population of 75 and has never been a hot spot of any kind, then chances are nobody will know your town off hand. In these instances go bigger, optimise for the larger geographical area or town as well as the suburb. I know that this certainly has worked for smaller estate agent websites we have worked on based in a small suburb of a major South African city. While they rank highly for variations of their keywords for their specific town and suburb, the bulk of all traffic comes from the very broad searches as this makes a great starting point. While this traffic doesn’t convert as well, it certainly means that you won’t be missing a potential lead.

Always include area info. Once again as many visitors may not know the area very well it may prove very useful to supply a map of the greater area with a breakdown town by town. As mentioned earlier with many of the small towns that dot the map, many of the service providers may supply more than a single town due to supply and demand. This should help with two things. Firstly, it will help put distance and location of your business into some perspective in relation to where they will be. Secondly, this certainly won’t hurt in the search engines. Always remember relevant information is always welcome; just don’t cram it full of useless information.

Going back to the opening paragraph we must remember that not everyone knows their geography that well, and fewer still are masters of localised geography. Keep this in mind when optimising your website. Always try to think like an out-of-towner. Keep it specific, going broad when you must but always make sure that you have your bases covered for your local searches (although if you’ve done your offline marketing well this shouldn’t be a problem).

Longtail Keywords Convert Better

You’ve built a state-of-the-art website expecting it to be your little nest egg. But the thought that runs through your mind now is how you are going to get people to see it. The first thought that comes to mind is to gain top rakings with major search engines and anyone else for that matter. This leads you to the next question, which is What keywords are you going to target?

This can be a tricky obstacle at the best of times. You expend countless hours into researching the keywords and phrases with the highest level of popularity. Now, with the hard work done, sleepless nights and agonising wait over, you finally see your website rank for these keywords and phrases. While this does start to generate quite a bit of traffic you notice that it hasn’t made that much impact on the bottom line. Why aren’t they buying, signing up or downloading your product or service?

Even after doing all your homework, identifying what were money maker keywords you simply aren’t making any. Could it be that you aren’t bringing in the best-qualified visitors?

As a web design, hosting and marketing company, we at PropData based in South Africa, undertake the promotion and maintenance of all of our clients’ websites. The better the website performs, the happier our clients are and in tern, the happier our clients the more likely they are to refer us to other interested or needing parties.

Recently we made changes to one of our largest clients’ websites and it was decided that rather than try and hit generic search terms that we would prefer to target longer tail keywords. The reasoning here was that while searching for real estate online, the average search would include both location and dwelling type (apartment, house, etc). The results were astounding! When comparing the statistics against a previous record month (a month in the past 6 months that had recorded the highest number of visits) we noticed a few very interesting points:

• Traffic had increased considerably, while number of pages per visitor decreased.


• Enquiries on listed property had increased.


• Mailing list subscriptions had doubled!

It would seem that while going broad and targeting generic search terms we had missed the most important factor; that the average searcher is looking for something specific.

While in this particular case there was a noticeable increase in visitors, the number of page views didn’t grow in accordance. While many might be concerned that we had lost traffic, and targeted traffic at that, the increase in mailing subscriptions as well as enquiries would suggest something better. We no longer simply had the random visitor having a look about but that the average visitor was now someone who was actually looking for a specific listing. They were going straight to the listings that met their needs. But most important - this visitor was now converting.

The client was very happy to see such positive results. With a constantly growing mailing list of prospective clients, their latest listings are being viewed by an ever growing audience. This in turn can only result in further business. While in real estate it is difficult to make a sale through a website, we consider a direct enquiry on a listing a success.

The same principle and model applies to all websites. If you sell mobile phones from a single manufacturer then don’t try and target mobile phones as a key phrase. Rather if you are selling Nokia phones target Nokia mobile phones or better yet even target each listing by model too. At the end of the day, someone searching for mobile phones is simply going to look through your website, possibly enquire on a few listings but will have very little commitment. However someone who is searching for a Nokia communicator 9300i mobile phone is in a much better position to make an impulse purchase when they find your website. At this point they are specifically seeking that which you have to offer.

I would like to add that while your meta description tag won’t aid you in rankings this can be crucial when it comes to making that conversion. A well thought up and informative description tag can often in itself convert a good search engine ranking into a click through. Once again it comes down to being precise rather than just having a standard generic site description.

While many webmasters and website owners congratulate themselves on gaining a high ranking or high volumes of traffic, it is always important to remember the purpose of the website. For most of us a website is a means to make sales or gain further interest in our services. Either way this translates into us wanting more business. If your traffic isn’t converting then it is really the same as owning a shop in the busiest mall with nobody ever stepping through your door.