Are you ready for this…

This is post 2 in the “How To Be #1 on Google” series.

This post will cover strategies #3, #4, and #5.

We hope you’ve taken ACTION on strategies #1 and #2 in part one of this series.

If you did you should already be seeing RESULTS…

Those RESULTS mean MORE JOBS, and BETTER JOBS … just like these guys:

“We have been using Dan Hollings’ strategies to keep our business listing on page 1 and so far are the only website aside from pay-per-click sites to do so. Last month, this strategy generated over a 42:1 return when we booked over $500 in new business on an $11 investment.”
- Emilio Martinez, FiberCare, El Paso, TX

“On Google we come up number 2, 3, 5, and number 7 and a couple more on the second page. We received 2 calls this week and one call last week. We booked all 3… On Tile and Grout we come up 1, 2, 3 and 5. We also come up 1 and 2 on the hardwood floor refinishing. I think I am in Love with internet marketing! We completely dominate every aspect of our business on the web. I don’t mean we come up #1 in the search engines. We come up the first page and a half. Carpet, Tile, Furniture, Hardwood. 6 in Duct Cleaning. I have learned a ton from these strategies… If somebody searches for their company they automatically land on one of my pages. That’s awesome. Who needs competitors anyway. We now average $920 a week of the internet.”
- Jeremy Shambaugh Carpet Service, Mansfield, Ohio

“The internet is helping big time. I’m averaging 10 to 15 new clients a month over the last 3 or 4 months from the web and they’re mostly high dollar clients.”
- Matt Craine, Professor Pyle’s Five Step, Rancho Cordova, CA

As YOU stay plugged in to this Rich Cleaner Blog we’ll continue to give you free marketing wisdom that will help you “Eat Your Competition Alive!” online and offline.

Also, we want to thank those of you who posted a comment on part one of this series… you’ve all been entered into our drawing to win the killer 3 hour audio recording of Joe, Dan and some of Piranha’s most successful cleaning and restoration marketing students discussing these insider online marketing secrets. Keep those comments and questions coming.

Okay… so last post we left off with Strategy Three about keywords… that’s where we’ll pick up today:

#3 The ‘KEYS’ To Your Local Success

When people seeking your service start exploring online, they do so like you, me and everyone else. They rev up their browser, head off to a site or search engine and start searching. Most searches are done by typing in a KEYWORD or PHRASE to a search box, clicking the search button and scanning through the resulting SERPs (Search Engine Results Page).

Since we know this is what people do, all that’s left for us to determine is WHAT the heck they are typing into that little search box. If we can make an educated guess about that, then our job becomes more defined. All we must do is PLANT ourselves (our service, our listing, a site, a page or a blog) so we pull up on the SERPs where they are looking.

If you’ve ever heard anything about “Search Engine Optimization” (SEO), this is basically what we are discussing, but at a very simplified level. You need not have any special talents to do this stuff, just the knowledge of what to do and where to do it. The process once clear in your mind is rather simple. The good news is that doing this stuff on the LOCAL level is far easier than trying to achieve a similar goal on a national or global scale. But for you, and for your business, LOCAL is exactly where we want to be found.

So what do we need to do?

We need to figure out what KEYWORDS or PHRASES local folks are typing into those little search boxes!

How do we do it?

WOOD WITH GORDS?

Are you good with words? Great, it doesn’t really matter. There are many tools online that query actual search databases and tell us exactly what people are typing into those boxes, but we’ve posted a tool that is like a ONE STOP SHOP for most of your keyword research needs. It’s located here:

http://danhollings.com/woodgords/

In our advanced trainings we help people maximize their use of such tools, but for most, little explanation is really needed and again, for local search, just a little research with such a powerful tool goes a long, long way.

So let’s cover what you do to discover some of the KEYWORDS and PHRASES local homeowners may be using in their searches, when you are using a keyword tool… (print this out and use it as a checklist).

Determine who you’re after…

• Think of the ONE person most likely to need what your web page or service is about.
• Erase from your mind all inside knowledge about your company, product, service, industry etc.
• Forget all techno-babble terms only known by experts or industry insiders

Jump into the mind of the person (the homeowner in need)…

• You are not a former customer, so you have no history or relationship
• You have a definite need, challenge, desire, question or interest (that’s why you are searching)
• You’re about to type words into a Google search box in the hope the search results page will guide you to a solution, a service, an answer, a perfect business or site.
• You initially seek information and/or help more so than a product or “expert.”

Ask Yourself…

• What words or phrase would you type in whereby when the results came up and you saw the site title listed (and ultimately a linked page)… you’d say “BINGO” this is what I was looking for!
• Sometimes by thinking about the “who, what, when, where, why or how” behind the searchers motivation, it will spark additional useful keywords and phrases.

You’re not done…

• Ask your spouse, your Ex, you neighbor, your kids, your postman, your lawn-keeper, your pet sitter, your cousin Skippy, past customers, your bartender and anyone else you can reach out to.
• Don’t prep them with background info, just show them your draft page, a printout, or tell them your basic goals. The less you say, the better results you’ll get.
• Remember, people are not always good spellers… misspelled keywords can be gold.

Explore your competition…

• Go to Google, type in the keywords you’ve discovered and look at the top sites that return on the results page. These sites are competing for a similar audience on a large scale – borrow from them for your local plans.
• Go to sites you already know (from experience) that are seeking to attract the same people. Examine what they are doing and take notes if you think you see a good idea.
• Examine your competition’s page title, headlines and meta tags (all browsers allow you to view source code and find keyword meta tags near top).

Plant Your Seeds

Create/brainstorm a short tight list of 5 to 15 “seed” keywords. You might have a short list like:

MY SEED KEYWORDS

carpet cleaning service
carpet cleaner service
best carpet cleaning
home rug cleaning
cleaning berber carpet
carpet cleaning companies
rug cleaning
carpet cleaner
residential carpet cleaning
carpet stain removal

Grow Your Seeds

Now visit the Keyword Tool below and expand your list to a solid 10 to 50 keywords and phrases that have a healthy number of searches actually occurring on a monthly basis. Don’t assume the highest search volume keywords are the best, rather pick the best ones that truly seem that they might originate from the TYPE customer you desire. Explore the other tools and links all found on this page as you enter your “SEEDS” one at a time:

http://danhollings.com/woodgords/

Keep in mind that because you will be focusing on a LOCAL market, you will most likely want to add your city, state, county, and/or zip code to the keyword phrases you compile.

#4 Prepare For The Big Red ‘TAG’ Sale

Well, maybe they’re not red, but we do need to talk a moment about TAGS… that is, the internet or blogosphere variety that have become so BIG in so many ways these days. To make it quick and easy to understand, you might think of a TAG as a one or two word keyword used to CATEGORIZE what you do or what your site or web page is about. It’s another way that people might find your business, page, blog or site.

Just as you need to know (or think about in advance) the keywords that a searcher might type into a search box, you also need to know what CATEGORY or set of TAGS best classify what you do. These TAGS will be used more so to categorize blogs, photo’s, and other social media things you do – whereas, your keywords will be associated more with your web pages or sites.

Don’t get too hung-up thinking about why this works this way, rather let’s just move forward and while we have keywords on our mind, let’s pick a small highly focuses set of TAGS so we have them ready for some blog and social media strategies we’ll cover later.

You can likely do this part off the top of your head, if you’ve just completed your keyword research. Just think of 3 to 10 categories (one word to three words are best) that your service or site fits. Your TAG LIST might resemble the one below (but please, create your own so you can be even more exacting – localize as much as possible).

MY TAGS

carpet cleaning
YOUR CITY carpet cleaner
YOUR CITY rug cleaning
carpet cleaner
carpet steam cleaners
clean carpets
home rug cleaning

#5 What Are You In The Middle Of?

In other words, where the heck are you? If you expect people to find you in a search engine or online, you have to PLANT the various location names, zips and spots directly into your listings and pages. Only by doing this can the search engines know when and where to deliver your page up on the proper local SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages).

This step is critical and we have a couple of tools that will help make it very, very quick and easy. What you do now is create a list of every city, county, community, and ZIP code that is within a reasonable distance from your location. Naturally, if it’s an area that you are NOT interesting in getting calls from you’ll exclude it. Use the tools below to create lists of areas you are most interested in (don’t stretch yourself too wide – focus in on your prime target areas):

The city and zip code part can be done with this tool:
(You need only enter your ZIP and a radius in this tool – results will show at bottom)

http://www.5minutesite.com/local_keywords.php

To help you with local county names, try this tool:

http://www.naco.org/Content/NavigationMenu/About_Counties/Data_and_Demographics/Data_and_Demographics.htm

With your localized KEYWORDS, TAGS, and LOCATIONS in hand, you’re now ready to set up some web pages.

Don’t worry… this is easy.

In fact, it’s as fun as a family fishing trip.

Unlike the early years of the internet when you needed to either be or find a programmer, a designer, and a pot of money; today, with blogs being so popular and WEB 2.0 in it’s early stage of maturity, setting up web pages in various spots is a snap.

We’ll show exactly how to in the remaining posts of this series. We’ll show you how to set up pages, blogs, submit articles in the right places, start monetizing online social networking and link it all together for total online dominance.

Post your questions.

Take action on these strategies – YOU WILL SEE RESULTS. YOU WILL GET MORE JOBS!

Even though we’re giving you all this proven strategy on the Rich Cleaner Blog (for FREE) and it’s all strategy that’s FREE to implement… IT WILL WORK.

Here’s more from Rich Cleaner Blog Members and Piranha Marketing Members that are making more money and getting more jobs from these online strategies:

“50% of our calls in the last 2 weeks have come from Google search!”
- Joseph Hill, Cherry Hill Cleaning

“We have been implementing some of Dan Holling’s internet ideas for a while now and have only managed to get our name on the first page of google via another website… Our actual website would not come up until the 4th page… UNTIL TODAY! I uploaded my first youtube video showing the steps we follow to clean upholstery and then added it and a few pictures to our google account and hey PRESTO… We now feature 8 times on the first page of Google when you type in carpet cleaner rockhamtpon. Our Website is #2.”
- Cassie Holland, Austrailia

Don’t forget, post YOUR comments or questions and you’ll qualify to win the 3 hour audio training recording with Joe and Dan and some of Piranha’s most successful cleaning and restoration marketing students discussing these insider secrets to online marketing.

Thanks again for all of the GREAT comments so far on this thread so far. We’re happy to hear you guys are taking action on the ideas (we ain’t going to turn this economy around by waiting for the government to do it for us … we need to create our own commerce right now).

By the way – Dan Hollings will be the special Guest on the Coaching Call for Gold and Platinum Piranha Members on April 6th. We’re going to go deep with Twitter and social media – and how to make it not only “social” but profitable.

Stay tuned in to the value on this blog… we’re committed to doing all we can to help all of the hard-working small business owners out there… you deserve, and have earned as much help as you can get.

FOLLOW JOE

FOLLOW LISA