Texas SEO Company Blog

Del Rio is more than just the home of the Air Force pilot training camp Laughlin Air Base and big mouth bass. It is also one half of one of the six border bi-national cities along the Mexico-America border. It’s second half, Ciudad Acuña, sits on the other side of the Rio Grande river.

The geographical location of Del Rio poses special challenges and opportunities for businesses who want to optimize their websites for local traffic. Are you targeting the south side of the river or the American city Del Rio? Or both? Should you translate your website into both Spanish and English so that you can appeal to a bilingual audience?

Your Del Rio business is a unique business and it deserves a unique website. With Texas SEO on your side, you can achieve a level of website optimization that most sites can only dream of - a bilingual site that attracts visitors from two countries. Wouldn’t that be grand?

I thought it might be helpful to analyze the Google SERP for the key term “Odessa Texas”. If we Google that phrase, what will we find and what would a company have to do to capture the No. 1 spot for that phrase?

I’m going to focus on the top 5 listings because anything below that likely doesn’t get the kind of traffic that I’d want to get with a commercial website. The top 5 listings for “Odessa Texas” are:

• The city of Odessa website
• Wikipedia entry for Odessa, Texas
• The Odessa Convention and Visitors Bureau
• Odessa’s City-Data page
• Odessa Chamber of Commerce

To capture the No. 1 spot for “Odessa Texas” would require a lot of work. I’m not saying it can’t be done but a webmaster would have to work awfully hard against the age factor and inbound links pointing to the above sites. You would be much better off targeting “Odessa Texas” and keywords related to your business. For instance, let’s say you own an antique shop in Odessa and you want to capture the No. 1 spot for “Odessa Texas antiques”. What would you need to do?

That would be a lot more feasible to attempt and if you are starting an antique website in Odessa, Texas, I’d say recommendable. The first thing I’d do is build a solid website with good on-page SEO. Secondly, I’d undergo a link building campaign using target keyword phrases as anchor text and point them to my most important web pages. I’d also start a blog on my domain and blog to it every day. A blog will fresh original content to your website every day and help you increase your on-page SEO strengths, giving you a vital and necessary content creation edge over your competition. I’ve actually seen companies take a No. 1 spot in Google within a year using that strategy. Your company in Odessa Texas can do it too.

The Google Webmaster Central Blog’s series on links has been interesting. Last night they discussed inbound links.

It’s interesting that Google stated what it considers to be the most valuable types of links: Those links that occur as a natural consequence of webmasters building unique, valuable content. In other words, though Google didn’t say it outright, “Content is King.”

Content is king because if it is valuable, useful, and high quality then other website owners will link to your content without a formal invitation. They will do it because they want to. But how do you build that kind of quality into your content? Here are a few suggestions:

• Start a daily blog
• Post videos
• Do original research and post on topics no one else is posting on
• Add new content on a regular basis
• Teach new things
• Report news that no one else is reporting
• Entertain your audience
• Provide insightful information
• Show the world that you are the expert
• Interview interesting people
• Provide a useful product or service

The bottom line on content development is to produce quality, high value content before anyone else does. Beat your competition. Get there first and do it better. It’s an old journalism creed that still works in the online world. When you build that kind of content then other website owners will link to you automatically and that’s Google’s preferred type of inbound link.

I ain’t from Texas but there’s an old country song that I heard once where the words went something like, “Happiness is Lubbock, Texas in my rear view mirror.” Well, I wouldn’t exactly say that. But if I had a little bit of wanderlust still rustling around in this old head or heart of mine then I might see it a little differently. Nevertheless, I’m kinda glad I made it to Texas. It’s been good to me.

But I do think there is something special about opening up your Internet Explorer and seeing a beautifully designed and well optimized website. And if that website is a Texas-based business website then all the more better. Right?

Well, I think so anyway, and that’s why I wrote me a song about looking at SEO Texas in my IE Windows. Here it is. It goes something like this:

I was just fifteen and out on parole
Fond of Matt Cutts and rock and roll
I knew down deep in my broken soul
That I had to hide away

Cyberspace was a lady in red
Who danced in the dreams
That flew in my head
I knew I’d wind up
In Texas or dead
If I couldn’t stay

I thought happiness
Was SEO Texas
In IE Windows
My ISP kept calling me home
But I just did not want to hear her
And my vision got clearer
In my dreams

So I crashed one night in July
Stoned on the glow of Texas apple pie
Humming an old Elvis Presley song
It couldn’t be wrong

With my favorite code
And a worn out node

I ran off chasing a megabyte
If Muhammad Ali could put up a fight
I figured I just might

And I thought happiness
Was SEO Texas
In my IE Windows
My Google kept calling me home
But I just did not want to search her
And my tongue tried to besmirch her
In my cyber dreams

But the Yahoo! moon didn’t
Smile the same old smile
That I’d grown up with
In second place,
She wanted my last dime

And I cried myself to sleep at night
Too dumb to run, too scared to fight
And too proud to admit it at the time

So I got me some work on Saturday nights
Not much more than html catfights
I’d come home drunk and I’d try to write
But the content came out wrong

Hell bent and bound for a wasted youth
Not enough gin and too much vermouth
And no one to teach me
How to seek the truth
While my URL was long

I still thought happiness
Was SEO Texas
In my IE Windows
My meta tags kept calling me home
But I just could not, would not hear them
And my voice sounded like Tiny Tim’s
In my dreams

Well, I thank God each and every day
For giving me the SEO content to say
I’d-a never made it any other way
He was my only friend

Now I sleep a little better at night
When I look in Windows
In the morning light
The man I see was both wrong and right
He’s coming home again

I guess happiness was SEO Texas
In my IE Windows
But now happiness is SEO Texas
Glowing in Mozilla
And I’m looking more like a gorilla
In my cyber dreams

And I think I finally know
Just what it means
And when I die you can bury me
In SEO, Texas, with Mexican beans

OK, it’s not much. I guess you know now why I didn’t go into music and instead started my own Texas SEO company.

Note: I’d just like to say thanks to Mac Davis for letting me make fun of his song, “Texas In My Rear View Mirror.”

Sarah Palin may not know anything about SEO, but you can bet your Texas-based business can learn a thing or two about SEO from her debate skills. The following tips are pointers straight from the Sarah Palin debate skills contest:

• Speak the language of your target market - Sarah Palin knows how to talk like a hockey mom. She is one. Her “betchas” and “darn toot’ns” resonate with a certain class of voter because it makes them identify with her. It’s a great language skill to have - in politics and marketing. Turn your next SEO campaign into a folk communication art. Speak the language of your target market.
• Keep it positive and smile a lot - Sarah Palin made a point to smile a lot. Her answers to debate questions weren’t extremely substantive, but they were designed to make her look friendly and approachable. Your SEO content should do the same. Make your company look friendly and approachable, not stuffy and detached.
• Support your team - Sarah Palin made a point not to say anything negative about her running mate. You should stick with positive talk about your partners, if you decide to mention them at all. Don’t talk about the negatives, even when asked.
• Know your strengths - Sarah Palin never walked out of her element. She stayed on topic and played to her strengths. Your SEO campaigns should do the same. Don’t get out of your element.
• Talk about what you know - You know a lot about your niche. Tell your readers what you know, but don’t tell them too much. Stay away from topics you are not familiar with. That’s what Sarah Palin does.
• Discuss where you came from - Know your roots and don’t be afraid to address them. You have a unique story to tell so tell it.

Sarah Palin may not be the most polished vice presidential candidate, but she knows how to reach her market. When it comes to writing SEO content, you need to know your audience and what makes them tick. Like Sarah Palin does.

Newspaper headlines are notorious for being attention grabbers. The best ones really know how to get your attention and make you read the story. Have you ever read a news headline then delved into the news story only to be disappointed? If so, do you know why you were disappointed? Chance are, the story ended up being about something quite different than what the headline promised. The more spectacular the headline, the more of a let down it is if the story disappoints. The same is true of your website content.

You can learn to write good web page headlines by studying a few newspapers. They do virtually the same thing. Each headline should:

• Grab the reader’s attention
• Tell what the story is about
• Get the reader to read

That’s pretty much the headline’s job. Get the reader to read. But simply writing a headline that tells what the story is about isn’t going to cut it. You need to add some sparkle to that headline. Otherwise, all you’ve got is a boring headline that tells what your web page is about. That’s why many newspaper headlines are written with a little flair. They are trying to spark an interest.

I’m not saying your headline needs to be controversial. It can be, if that’s what is called for. But many newspaper headlines aren’t controversial either. Feature stories, business attaboys, and community-oriented news stories are generally not controversial. But the headlines do inspire people to read with action words. I bet you can make your web page headline do that too.

But there is one more thing that a website headline must do that newspaper headlines can’t (and probably shouldn’t). You must attract the interest of search engine spiders with great SEO. That means, your primary (and possibly, secondary) keyword must be in the headline. The preferred position for your keyword is within the first three words of the headline. The closer to the front, the better. A well-optimized headline that grabs the reader’s attention and gets them to read while telling them what the story is about is an award-winning headline. And with a little practice, you can do it.