Any suggestions for locally based businesses?

[noelgiger]

I am a wedding and event planner (and certainly not a web expert, although I have learned a lot from the WebPro newsletters and forums)

I revamped and re-published my website http://www.gigerdesignstudio.com in January this year, and agressively began learning about SEO and all that "jazz". I have even hired a SEO company that is suposed to have put in paid inclusion for me, but I am not seeing any results.

All of the traffic analyzers and tools that I have seen look at the broad spectrum. The customers that I am trying to reach are in a 100 mile radius of Dallas, TX. When I search for dallas wedding or dallas event planner, etc. All the national providers take the top spots (theknot.com, modernbride.com, etc. ) even to several pages deep.

What would you (the experts!) recommend that I do? I have registered on Google local http://www.google.com/local?q=weddin...53035342842232 and have 17 "references", but google only has 1 link when I search link:www.gigerdesignstudio.com

I am agressively pursuing link exchanges (which I currently list on my sitemap page http://www.gigerdesignstudio.com/sitemap.html )

Any other ideas out there?
Thank you!

[roban]

I view your site at 1024 X 768 and still have to scroll side to side. You might want to consider trimming down that width a bit since most users are browsing at 800 x 600.

I might want to take those links and put them on a Links page. I too have a local site with a PR 4 on most pages and I can tell you it takes time to get ranked. Local or not you still want to drive people to the site with content and optimized key words. Have you done a search for key word relevency? I have found that on my vitamin site for example, the search for 'vitamin' daily returns over 60,000 hits while 'vitamins' returns only a couple of hundred. Software like Even Better Keywords can help you to do this. http://www.webbactivemedia.net/web_tools.htm

[jacobwissler]

To optimize your website for the local Dallas market start with the following:
1. Remove the words "home page" from your title line.
2. Use the word Dallas in the title line.
3. Use the word Dallas in your description tag.
4. Use the word Dallas twice near the top of the page, but do not over use it.

This is just a start. Your link on Web Pro World will get Google to crawl your site, so no need to submit.

[Duncan Pollock]

Absolutely!
I needed to scroll down past your e-mail address before I had any idea that you were focused on the Dallas area and its surrounds -- and I'm not sure I'd have realized this even then if I hadn't read your post here.
Despite what you think, you aren't in competition with the Big Guys and they aren't in competition with you. You're possibly the one and only firm that serves people in and round Dallas, so make this obvious from the get go.

Duncan

PS. Case in point: look at the description in my signature and tell me if you'd ever bother to contact me if you were interested in buying a house in Dallas. No way, because I make it clear what specific geographical area I serve -- just as my website does.

[KeithO]

Originally Posted by jacobwissler

To optimize your website for the local Dallas market start with the following:
1. Remove the words "home page" from your title line.
2. Use the word Dallas in the title line.
3. Use the word Dallas in your description tag.
4. Use the word Dallas twice near the top of the page, but do not over use it.

This is just a start. Your link on Web Pro World will get Google to crawl your site, so no need to submit.

I totally agree. There isn't enough focus on the area you serve so its not going to help with the general searches.
Also your META tags are the same for the entire site and your area is only mentioned once.