At a recent trade show a independent retailer approached our team and explained that his business offered shipping services but did not show up on the first page of Google for FedEx and UPS searches in his area. He was looking for critiques of his current site as well as guidance towards improving his lowly position in theĀ SERPĀ for those crucial keywords.
As a disclaimer, the population of the town where this gentlemanās store resided was only 21,000 people. Furthermore, outside ofĀ local.fedex.com, there wasnāt much competition for these keywords in this area.
If you find your business in a similar situation and need to work towards showing up for a few specific keywords in a market that is not very competitive, here are a few tips that may help you to improve your search visibility.
- Is your term contained in the URL?
- One of the first things we noticed for our customer was that the term FedEx or UPS did not appear in the url. Meaning that the word did not appear in the web address āĀ www.domain-name.com/central-shipping
- One of the best ways to tell Google about your page is by including the term you want to be found for in the pageās url. Ie-Ā www.domain-name.com/shipping-services-fedex&UPS
- Is your term in the pageās title?
- The title of your page should be descriptive and include some variation of the main term you would like to be found for.
- Is the term included in text in the body of the page?
- Our example customer only had a link to FedEx with the logo. The page did not say FedEx nor did it say UPS in text anywhere on the page.
- Is there a description of the product or service?
- It is valuable to include a description of the product or service you would like to show up for. Not only does this add clarity for the search engines but also might help convert web researchers into paying customers by convincing them to use your service. Also, the description may help you show up for a closely related term that will help attract a potential buyer to your website.