Local Businesses and Online Success
Back in the early days of the internet simply having a website online could be enough effort to guarantee that your business would be found. The primary reason being that competition was very thin. Potential clients and customers were clamoring to use the internet for all purposes, including finding service providers. As we all know, the dot-com boom was followed by a sharp collapse. As more and more competition entered the marketplace, in the form of new websites offering new services, the easy approach of ‘set it and forget it’ quickly disappeared.
Search engines inherently played a roll in both the dot-com boom, and its collapse. Most search engines, as a default, display 10 search results per page. This makes the first page (and the first ten ranking spots) the most valuable to own and occupy, with a great emphasis being shown to the top three search results. As more and more competing websites and businesses came to be listed in these search engines, and their search engine optimization techniques improved, websites that were previously viewed as royalty with regard to their search rankings were gradually (and some not so gradually) dethroned. Combine this with rapid and ever changing search algorithm updates and its easy to understand that the internet was, and to some degree still is, a volatile place to do business. Top rankings for national / international keyword terms can net a small fortune on a daily basis. As you can imagine, losing those rankings suddenly can be quite detrimental to a businesses bank account.
Finding Success… Locally.
Enter local businesses into the online competition. As the costs associated with website design, hosting, and management decreased, more and more small and medium sized businesses started to enter the competition for search rankings. They have one huge advantage over national companies, however: a much smaller competition pool. Achieving solid, lasting rankings for a national search term, as opposed to a local search term, represents a much more difficult task. Nationally there are a lot of businesses trying to rank #1 for their terms. Locally, however, depending on your business and service offerings, the search engine ranking competition is likely much less fierce. Although the earnings are significantly lower than a ‘small fortune daily,’ in most cases ranking well for locally focused terms can be quite profitable, and in some cases extremely easy.
Local Keyword Targeting
Through Bellingham WP I maintain the goal of ranking well for local WordPress service and website design related search terms. Therefore, instead of entering into the national competition of competitive keywords, I can focus my efforts on a smaller portion, specifically, the Bellingham market. When businesses do this they immediately increase their chances of their website being found by clients and customers searching online for local services.
What separates Bellingham WP from the other web service companies in Bellingham is that we take local keyword targeting into account from the inception of your website design project. We work with you to determine the scope of your project and your intended audience so that we can gear the structure, content, and focus of your website in the direction of success. To support this effort we also provide business Search Engine Optimization (SEO) services developed to provide your business website with sustainable search engine rankings and continual ranking improvements. After all, a business website that cannot be found by its customers might as well not exist.
Taking A Local Business Online
Although it may seem daunting at first glance, getting a website online can be quite simple and straight forward. Many of the WordPress websites we design for our clients here at Bellingham WP are developed and launched for under $500. Also, depending on the availability of content, images, and a clear goal, we have most websites online within a few weeks. There seems to be a common misconception that “you get what you pay for.” This belief is usually held by men and women in the sales profession with high rates, used as a tactic to simply get the sale in spite of a more affordable option being available. Because of our attention to this aspect, even a basic website created by Bellingham WP can out perform websites produced at a higher cost.
If you’re in the market to have a business website designed, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us!
