What are the top Standards vs. Best Practices when it comes to websites?
Standards
Zip codes are not commonly used when searching for flooring - because of this, we do not use zip codes in Search Engine Optimization. We optimize to target how people are searching for flooring products. For example, “Flooring Store in Sarasota” instead of “Flooring store in 34236”. If a dealer is interested in targeting specific zip codes - this can be achieved through Pay Per Click campaigns. Find out more about PPC here. (LINK TO THEIR DOCS)
- The dealer’s storefront must be included as 1 of the markets
For beginners, it's essential to understand that Google typically sees any local business as most relevant to the city where the storefront is located. So, suppose you're located in Sarasota (i.e., have a dedicated local area code phone number and street address there). In that case, your prime location and best opportunity for achieving high visibility (aka Traffic/Leads) will be for searches that include the phrase 'Sarasota' or performed by Sarasota-based users. For this reason, the storefront city must be included as 1 of the 10 markets.
We can optimize for up to 10 markets max. It is fantastic when a dealer services a large area. However, it can be challenging to target when exceeding ten markets. When we exceed the ten markets, we stretch our resources too thin and do not effectively target the area we desire, making it difficult to compete with other retailers in the area. The ten markets we target are not defining the limits they service but rather a marketing strategy that can be built on in time.
Best Practices
Boundaries of the general area shouldn’t extend farther than about 2 hours of driving time from where the business is listed.
- Quantity based on difficulty
Though we can target up to ten locations, we often would want to focus on fewer than that, and sometimes even only one or two.Ex. If they have one location in San Diego, and there are no suburbs we can target, the best practice may be to target only San Diego throughout the siteEx. If they are in a rural area, we may want to target ten surrounding towns, as they may be the only flooring store in the area
It should be the spelling displayed on Google (ex., Sometimes ‘Township’ is spelled out, sometimes it’s ‘Twp’) and always “City, ST” formatting.