Tips for Getting a Very Small Site to Rank

[ScottImageWorks]

I am working on a very small (two page) site for a client, and trying to rank for some very competitive local terms. The site is www.arlingtonbuilders.com, and our terms center around local cities (like Arlington) plus "custom homes," "custom renovations," etc. I feel very limited in terms of what I can do on the site, and I'm building citations offsite, but I feel stuck.

I'd love some tips for helping them rank better without building out an entire site.

[paints-n-design]

Local SEO for big companies often is really bad. great answer

[Marcus_Miller]

Hey, no worries, happy to help!

Try to keep as many of the questions here as possible as it can then help other folks down the road but certainly PM me any sensitive bits and pieces as well.

Happy Friday!

[ScottImageWorks]

This is terrific! I'm going to come back when I've had some time to think and answer some of your questions and see what we can't sort out. I'll PM you then ... there's definitely some private info I'd rather not throw out here, but all of your advice makes for a great starting point, and I'd love to pick your brain a bit more!

[ScottImageWorks]

I absolutely agree, and would love to see them do more. We've thought about setting up photography for them, just because we really do need more images for marketing. They do gorgeous work and it speaks for itself - IF we can showcase it and IF we can get traffic to the site.

I really appreciate your reply, and the fighter analogy!  Thanks!

[EGOL]

Wow... what a great reply.

I am glad that you gave detailed info on "local search".

Nice work Marcus

[Marcus_Miller]

Sage advice as ever my friend.

[Marcus_Miller]

Hey Jess

Don't despair. There is certainly plenty you can do here and in our experience many larger companies are horrible when it comes to local optimisation so the smaller folks can often do well.

Let me try and give you some tips here.

1. The Lay of the land

Possibly the most important thing you can do here is understand the landscape - what are the terms you want to be visible for? What do the search results look like? Are there paid search adverts? Are they any good? Are there localised organic results? Are they any good? Is there a 7 pack or any local (Map) listings? Do the map listings and the organic listings tally (first in maps & first in organic).

By conducting this fairly simple research you can better understand where you need to place your client and what you need to do to get there.

2. The Site

I hear what you are saying re building out a big site but if your client provides several services and they all have different keywords then you really need a page for each service. These can then follow standard local optimisation practices that ensure that the service + location is highly optimised through each page. The big boys probably do this very badly so this is your guerilla SEO opportunity - the pain of a few extra pages here will salve the pain of failed marketing efforts later!

Possibly the only terms are custom homes and renovations but if that is the case make sure the landing pages serve both of these customer types from a search and more importantly user perspective.

A simple homepage title like the below should deal with that:

Custom Homes & Renovations in Arlrington, TX - BrandName.com

If you need more variation then splitting this out to individual pages will certainly help in everything else you do!

3. Paid Search

If your client is hyper local then chances are paid search is your quick and easy win. Your research should illuminate things here but if there are only generic adverts covering lots of terms and loosely matched landing pages you likely have a real chance to shine here. A few PPC adverts within a very tight geographic area with ad groups for each specific cluster of keywords could give you real exposure real quickly. Then.... factor in some retargeting with some nice banner adverts then for a very reasonable budget you can keep your client at the top of the page where most of the commercial clicks will likely end up anyhow and then follow them around the web to build the clients brand awareness (generally, you will get really good exposure with retargeting and a thousand or so impressions for every click at possibly a tenth of what you are paying for search clicks - value for money!).

One other point here is that having specific landing pages will help with the whole search, advert, landing page experience and likely drive up quality score, CTR, conversion etc which all helps.

3. Organic

It's hard to call this without being where you are and searching what you search but from the quick dig I have done I imagine that a well optimised site, well optimised citations and branded content any other third party authoritative domains that you can leverage will likely do well. For instance, if I google "custom renovations in arlington" then I see listings from Yelp, & Facebook dominating the top 5. So... well optimised citations and social profiles look like they could be a good starting point. And of course, making sure the site is 100% dialled in. Think Yelp, Pinterest, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter etc - all opportunities to grab some front page real estate. Tie this into your retargeting strategies as well and you are starting to drive that all important awareness.

4. Local

Local is more than likely an opportunity and searches from here (UK) seem to localise (show a 7 pack) for "home renovations arlington" etc so you need to get the local side of things dialled in. Rather than rattle on I suggest picking up the local visibility guide from Phil Rozek that covers off all the on and off site things you need to do.

In a nutshell

• ensure google understands the address & determine a NAP
• ensure this is consistent across the web and all citation sources
• get a good business description that mentions the keywords in a nice, natural way and get that on all citations + pictures etc. From here the first result for home renovations arlington is a yelp listing with one star (opportunity!)
• consider whitespark or brightlocal to help with the above
• optimise the site (all two pages of it) for local search - copy, page titles, nap on each page, schema etc

Then... wait, this is not an overnight fix.

5. Reputation

Given the local angle we have to consider reputation. What does it look like out there? Does anyone have reviews? Are they good? bad? I see only bad reviews and not many of them so devise a review strategy with the client. Get 5 reviews on the Google+ local listing and you have 5 gold stars on Google which none of the competition has. You may not be first but if you are the only one with folks saying good things then..

Also, on the bleeding edge, engagement with the Google+ pages seems to drive visibility as well so anything you can do to encourage (not manipulate or fake) reviews and engagement with your G+ local listing will only help (and it can be quite quick so don't discount this).

6. Social

Also, social offers an opportunity to really engage with folks. Get pictures from your client. Offer tips. Demonstrate your (their) credibility and experience. One post a week could help but just optimising those social profiles and listening could be a good start (I know this is not always easy with these kind of clients which is all the more reason to do it well as the competition are ghastly at this).

---

I hope that helps. I state all of this with the caveat that I am in the UK and started at 5am today which puts me sixteen and a half hours into my day - you can also add a couple of glasses of red wine to that picture. Happy to help here or PM me if you need to keep bits and bobs private.

Take care and don't let it stress you out - from here it looks wide open for your client  
Marcus

[EGOL]

....trying to rank for some very competitive local terms...  rank better without building out an entire site.

You have a "fighter wannabe" who is skinny, untrained, smokes, weak,.... and he wants to fight the heavyweight champ.

You can give him pep talks and send him into the fight or you can delay the fight and get him ready.

For this client I would explain that fighting on the web is a battle of resources.  He ain't got much right now, so don't expect much.

But, you can point out some ways to get some resources and suggest what those resources might be.  This company is building lots of attractive homes.  Each of them can be a marketing message for the community where it is located and a marketing message for the style of home.  Both of those are optimization keywords.

Getting a photographer to visit the homes, take lots of photos then someone at the company who knows about the homes can dictate some information about each photo.  Get that together in an optimized page for "Custom Home in East Arlington - Split Level".

These pages serve many purposes.  They can be used to market the home.  They can be used to showcase great work and demonstrate the range of homes that this company builds.  They can be used to showcase a presence in many neighborhoods.  They will collect traffic for their keywords.  People will pin them on Pintrest,  People will share them on Facebook... We like this!... We bought this!.. Yay!... This is beautiful!   Subcontractors might refer to them, real estate agents might refer to them.  Any builder who does not want that is nuts.... dumb even.

Tell this client.  YOU NEED TO DO THIS!   If this small investment sells ONE HOME you got your money back many times over.

I put more effort into sellin' stuff for $5 than they are spending trying to sell $500,000 homes.  Duh?

[Ray-pp]

I'd love some tips for helping them rank better without building out an entire site.

All you can do then is ensure that all on-page SEO is optimized and try to create word-of-mouth traction for external links.

However, if any competitor comes into your niche and does 'build out' the website, they will have an easy time outranking you.