Not sure where to begin

[StacyMagic]

Hello everyone,

My name is Stacy and I run an entertainment website.   We are magicians based in Akron Ohio.  I have researched, read and watch every video I can find on SEO.  I have a amateurs understanding of SEO and hope this isn't a dumb question.

Even though we are based in Akron Ohio, we receive a majority of our work from Cleveland.  My question... how do we target Cleveland?  To begin with, I'm not sure how to layout the site.  Should we choose 4 of the biggest terms and then target smaller more specific via blog?  When I began keyword searching for terms that might fit our business I found terms such as Magician, magicians, and Magicians for hire rank rather well.  When I add "Cleveland" in front of these terms, i'm receiving 0 search results.  I guess this is where I get confused.  Since we are trying to target this city, should we be long tailing with Cleveland in front of our terms?

Truly having a hard time targeting this city and not sure how to go about it.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Stacy,

Your question is smart! It's good you're working to understand this, and I'll do my best to explain how this works on a local level. I'm going to break this into 4 parts.

1. Because your business is located in Akron, your Google local pack rankings will be confined to appearing for searchers who are either searching from a device in Akron, or, including the term 'Akron' in their search ... like 'magicians akron'. You are unlikely to achieve local pack rankings for any other city than Akron, because of Google's bias toward physical location. In order for you to achieve local pack rankings in Cleveland, you would need to have a physical location there.

2. Because of the above, your ability to be visible for Cleveland is going to be confined to organic results rather than local ones. For starters, you will need a Cleveland page on your website. You don't have a physical location there, of course, but you can strive to create the BEST page in your industry/geography. You'll want to make this page totally amazing, with fantastic content, and link to it from the top level menu of your website. What would be natural here would be for you to thoroughly showcase some of your gigs you've done in Cleveland. Write them up, show photos, videos, testimonials from customers, FAQs, talk about Cleveland, your work there, etc. Be sure you're implementing best SEO practices in the text and tags of the page. In addition to your menu linking to this Cleveland page, link to it from other pages within the site and then begin the work of earning inbound links from third party sites. The better the page is and the more links it has earned, the better your chances of this page showing up in the organic results for Cleveland-based-or-related searches.

Once you have built this best-in-industry/geography page, consider blogging to continue to grow your 'Cleveland-ness'. I'm not very familiar with your industry, so you'll likely have better ideas than I would regarding what to blog about, but I'd think further showcasing of your events, posts about magic, posts about magic shops, magic tricks, magic venues in Cleveland would be a start. Promote the posts socially. Each one is a chance for a potential customer to end up on your site, saying, "Hey, I want to hire this magician!"

3. The third thing you have to consider is competition. If local pack rankings in Akron, and your best efforts to rank organically for Cleveland are not getting you the visibility and gigs you need, if may be that the competitiveness of the searches you are going for is just too tough for a new business to surmount and you will need to rely on PPC. You may only need to pay for clicks temporarily, until you've achieved local/organic visibility, or, it may need to be a permanent part of your marketing strategy.

4. Finally, be aware that Google is currentyl going through the greatest upheaval in Local in recent memory, converting formerly free local pack rankings to pay-to-play home service ads (see: http://searchengineland.com/google-home-services-ads-plumbers-locksmiths-san-francisco-beta-226469). In the next few years, you may be _required to pay for placement. _This could be bad, if your budget is slim. Or, for a business like yours, it could be good if Google will allow you to pay enough to appear for searches in a neighboring city where you're not physically located. Not sure if that will work that way, but it might. So, stay tuned in on these developments.

Hope this helps!

[wearehappymedia]

Hi Stacy, I was in a similar position not long ago, but this community and the Moz videos have been particularly helpful. A a fellow amateur I can't really add anything to donford's post but all I can stay is stick with this lot - there is hope! (Moz guide to the basics is a great place to start)

[donford]

HI Stacy,

Dayton Ohio here!

I know the amount of information about SEO can be overwhelming; some of it which still ranks well is outdated...FRUSTRATING!

Any advice I can give will be tailored by my past experience, as I would assume most of everybody else’s will be as well.

To start with there are basically 4 things I will touch on.

1.) Your website.
Are you building it by hand?
Or are you using a CMS (Content Management System); WordPress, Blogroll, Joomla...?

This is an important decision to make. Each pre-built CMS system has some perks and disadvantages. Most are simple to get published but maybe more popular targets for hackers simply due to the platform's popularity. Even with decent web designer skills they can present a challenge to get past the learning curve to do any personal customization.

If you are building your own site, you may have a lot of work ahead of you in non SEO related categories. Depending on your design and coding skills this may not be a huge hurdle.

Either option is valid. But you'll want to fully familiarize yourself with the platform you choose and its SEO's effectiveness.

2.) Know the basics (Moz Guide To The Basics)
When building a site, or choosing a platform you'll want a firm understanding of these concepts. If choosing a platform these will allow you to adequately evaluate each one. If building your own site you can easily write the content with the basics in mind.

3.) Mobile Friendly is a must for new sites
The amount of people using tablets, and mobile devices is only going to go up each year. If you are starting a new site ensure your content is mobile friendly. Established websites may get a little leeway due to the amount of authority they have built up in the years before you, but starting out better than them is important. This year Google starting differentiating mobile search results based on their mobile friendliness.
Read:
9 This You need To Know About Google's Mobile Friendly Update
Basic Mobile Optimization
Responsive Web Design

4.) Content is Key
Having the best content for your industry is key to top search results. You may be able to take a good content approach at first to target long-tail, niche market keywords, but your end goal should be the best content. This is one of the most important aspects not oft talked about in SEO. You can have a great page with all the right SEO practices and never see page one search results. This is because you when you're on the internet you are competing with everybody in your industry. First page results = money for just about every industry!

If you don't bother with any links I posted here, please at least watch Rand Fishkin's Whiteboard Friday on Good Unique Content Needs To Die

To answer your question about picking keywords, while this is an important process and though long tail keywords may not bring a lot of traffic they will bring in the right traffic if all is done correctly you can start ranking for broader keywords, even without trying!

In summary, know the basics, and understand why mobile optimization is important, this will help you choose your design platform and finally remember writing the best content is one of the most important things you can do.

I really hope this helps,

Don