Texas SEO: Superbowl Keywords

Texas SEO Advice:    Austin  | Dallas | Houston  SEO Company

What are your Superbowl Keywords?  And Why are they so important in SEO? 

As a small business I tried pretty much everything to bring in new customers.   And some things worked.  It’s just that the ROI just wasn’t there.   The only  thing I didn’t invest in was radio advertising or a billboard.  Mostly because I have never bought anything off the radio or a billboard. 

But I have done bought stuff off the internet.   And today, for me and countless others,  buying something off the internet is common place.

When I bought my car, I researched it online.
When I buy plane tickets, I go online.
When I buy books, I go online.

Pretty much, if the purchase is significant I either research or buy it online.  Most people do this.  The internet is here to stay-and our mission is to help you be a part of the internet. 

Affordably.

This is why I formed my SEO company, www.jakerbaker.com.   Since I am a small business and I’ve personally gone thru the highs and lows of many Organic SEO campaigns I know what works in the SEO space.   I have spent lots of “SEO failure money.”

I cut my teeth in the most competitive online advertising spaces….mortgage and insurance lead gen.   In addition to running my Texas SEO company, I run a Texas Mortgage Company, www.mylendingplace.com. 

Before I knew anything about SEO I bought one of those $799 mortgage websites that every other mortgage company had.  It was pretty and that was about it.  It did very little to bring new customers in. And that’s a VERY common problem.   Lots of people have pretty websites that do virtually nothing to bring new customers.   I’ve even talked to potential SEO customers and they’ll brag on their websites, they’ll tell me all about it, show me all the bells and whistles…but when I asked them “how do people find this pretty website of yours” they say something like “the domain is on all our business cards.”

So rule #1:   Your website should bring new customers and new $$ into your business-by itself.   If your website isn’t following rule #1 well, call us and use one of our websites templates.

However, before we talk about SEO and your website, let’s talk about your actual website name.   This is something I wished I would have known back in my day of SEO/website ignorance.    What I’m about to say is such a big SEO deal,  let’s call it Rule #2:  

Rule #2:  YOUR WEBSITE NAME matters a lot.  Way more than you think.

For example, I named my Texas Mortgage Company, www.mylendingplace.com, which is kinda cute, right?   Well maybe…but from an SEO it gets a giant F.   Because my chief keywords are not in the actual URL.   Looking back, I should have just gone with JonnysTexasMortgage.com because had I done so, my primary keywords would have been in the URL.

As a result of naming my mortgage company something with very weak keywords, I have spent tons of time and tons of dollars trying to overcome this!  

Rule #2:   Have your primary keywords in  your dot come URL.    

Yes, a lot of the good URLs are gone but perhaps you can buy one or perhaps lease one of mine. 

Rule #3:   Know your primary keywords.   What are your “Superbowl” keywords?  This is the first step in any Organic SEO campaign.  We can’t hit a target we don’t see.   Are you in the flower business, chances are your company’s URL should have your (City)Fowers.com or perhaps you’re a divorce attorney in Chicago….yep!…you guessed it, your URL needs to contain the word divorce and better yet, the city or state you’re focusing on.  AustinDivorce….you get the idea. 

So what did I do with Mylendingplace.com? Did I trash it?  No way!  It’s ranking really well after nearly 4+ years of work…but now I’m trying to get an even great market share.  So can you guess some of the domains I’m currently launching?  

Check out http://www.texasmortgageassociates.com or even www.coffeemortgage.com   Note they all have the word “mortgage” in the URL.  The first site, www.texasmortgageassocaites.com is going to be a directory website for other Texas Mortgage Companies.    And coffee mortgage is going to be more of a national, branded– mortgage website.    You see, I can always add a directory or category for www.coffeemortgage.com.   This means,  I can create a coffeemortgage.com/texas or coffeemortgage.com/Oklahoma or coffeemortgage.com/florida.   Www.coffeemortgage.com is expandable, brandable….and since I love coffee, it’s the triple threat.

BTW, if you want to know what your Mortgage (or dental or flower) website will likely look like…check out www.coffeemortgage.com.   Naturally, your images and text will match your business but about 4+ years have gone into this template. 

It simply works. 

Let’s look at www.coffeemortgage.com a little deeper, specifically in terms of how I’m managing the URL.   Www.coffeemortgage.com is a short dot com so when the Google Search Engine Spiders sees Coffeemortgage.com/Texas it’s much easier to rank for “mortgage Texas” than if I did: 

http://www.mylendingplace.com/mortgage/rates/texas/  (which is the current “Texas Landing Page”) 

Shorter is better.   Google likes Clean URLs.  

Notice in all three example coffeemortgage.com/texas or coffeemortgage.com/Oklahoma or coffeemortgage.com/florida that I’m allowed to focus on the primary keywords “Mortgage Texas“, “Mortgage Oklahoma, “Mortgage Florid” pretty easily.  

With www.coffeemortgage.com…. eventually, slowly, overtime…when someone types “Mortgage rates in Texas”….www.coffeemortgage.com will come up with the Texas directory.  Probably quicker than I got with www.mylendingplace.com.

But since I’m probably 6 months away from consistently ranking…I’m taking the “shot gun approach” and using http://www.coffeemortgage.com/texas-refinance/texas-mortgage-refinance-rates/  as the only secondary directory.   I’m letting Google know (or trying to let them know!) that www.coffeemortgage.com is a website that deals with these keywords:   Texas Mortgage Refinance Rates.  

 These are my Superbowl keywords.   I want people to find one of my websites whenever someone types any combination of the following keywords:  TEXAS MORTGAGE REFINANCE RATES.

So I’ll end with Rule #4, which is probably the hardest rule to follow.  SEO takes time. 

And patience. 

Organic SEO works and has an awesome ROI, but patience is needed.   Most people don’t want to wait 6 months to get a good return, which is why Pay Per Click is so addictive.   But PPC is a “spend 1K and hope to make $1200 game.”  For many larger companies, it works great because they have lots of $$ to throw at thier websites.  But for the mom and pop stores– the companies who have SEO budgets in the 1K/month or less range–Organic SEO is the way to go.  

 If fact, if PPC is your end-game, you need to test what works in the organic realm first.  Because PPC bills come every month regardless if your profits do.  You need to know, with 90% certainty, what keywords actually bring in $$ before laying your credit card number down.   Because you’ll be amazed what keywords actually perform, which keywords REALLY onvert and which one’s just appear to work.   Strange I know…but testing is the key.

Remember, a “good” website brings in new customers and new $$ into your company.  This begins with hiring a great SEO company (like us!) .We are probably going to ask you to lease one of our URLs or try to buy a new one if your existing URL is keyword weak and finally (most importantly) any Organic SEO campaign requires patience.  

Texas SEO is a process, not an event.

www.jakerbaker.com

Austin |  Dallas | Houston | Texas SEO

Image Credit:  http://blogs.babble.com/famecrawler/2011/02/06/checklist-superbowl-kickoff-time-2011-are-you-ready-for-some-football/