Building a clean and concise website is essential for SEO and potential sales.  Humans and search engines should be able to navigate your site.  The common problems are broken links, blurry pictures, outdated templates, and spelling mistakes. In the limousine business, first impressions are everything. If you can’t build a coherent website, nobody is going to book your cars.

Design

Keep it simple stupid.  You don’t need Adobe Flash and a thousand fancy graphics to build a great site.  If you don’t believe me, check out Google and Craigslist.  These sites are so ridiculously simple a 5 year old could’ve designed them.

Most sites have a simple menu in the sidebar with text and graphics in the body.  Even huge ecommerce sites like Amazon and ebay follow this formula.  You would be wise to do the same.

Homepage

A site’s design should be aesthetically pleasing with straightforward navigation.  The homepage should be streamlined and direct clients to the most important pages.  Here a few things to keep in mind:

Strong Design – A well designed site conveys professionalism.  Consider purchasing a great looking template from a company like Template Monster.

Primary Keywords – Target the most important keyword phrases on the home page.  If you operate in Phoenix, these would be “Phoenix limo” and “Phoenix limousine.”

Direction – Multiple links should direct clients to the most important parts of your site.  These should be pages like “vehicles”, “packages”, and “rates.”

Linking – Link to the homepage from every page on the site.  These links should include the primary keyword phase used on the homepage.

Site Optimization

Strong design shouldn’t stop with the home page.  Every part of your site should be optimized.  The following tips should help:

Text Navigation – At their core, search engines are text readers.  Google has come a long way, but it still has difficulty reading complicated Adobe Flash sites.  Always use text-based navigation.

Graphic Navigation – If you use graphic navigation, use descriptive alt text with a keyword.  Also add secondary text-based navigation in the footer.

Site Map – Use a Google site map to help the search engines read your pages.

Interlinking – Use descriptive or keyword based text to link between different pages on the site.

Direction – If you want potential clients to visit an important page, direct them there.  This is best accomplished by telling them to “please click here” or some other direct phrase.

Link Out – If you link out to trusted sites, potential clients will view your website as a trusted resource instead of a sales pitch.

Wrap up

Good sight design and SEO aren’t mutually exclusive.  Keep the design simple, but always remember to use primary keywords, interlink pages with text-based navigation, and direct visitors to your most important pages.

Building an SEO friendly site isn’t difficult, but it does require patience and precision.

Keywords are at the heart of SEO.  Keywords help your site get recognized by Google, and as a result, help would-be clients find you on the net.  The correct selection and placement of keywords is imperative.  The following is a simple outline for using keywords:

Use a keyword tool – You don’t have to guess what clients are searching for.  A number of great keyword selection tools make research a snap.  Google Adword keyword tool, Wordtracker, and Keyword Discovery will help you find popular keywords.

Use common sense – It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what potential clients are searching for.  If you operate a limo service in Nashiville, people are searching for phrases like: Nashville limo, Nashville limousine, Nashville wedding limo, Nashville airport limo.  If you rank well for a few big keywords, you’ll own your local online market.

Focus on phrases – Most people use large phrases like Hummer limo in Nashville, not individual keywords.  It’s important to optimize your site around phrases, not individual words.

Break your site into sections – Breaking a site into sections makes it easier to organize keywords into various themes.  Typical limo keyword groups are vehicles, weddings, proms, airports, and rates.

Target keyword phrases – It’s a good idea to target different keyword phrases on each page.  Target no more than one or two primary and two or three secondary keyword phrases per page.

Page Optimization

Once you’ve selected a group of targeted keywords, it’s important to put them in the proper places throughout a site.  Your site should be optimized for humans and search engines.

Put keywords in the page titles – This is the most important place to put your keywords.  The keywords should be placed near the beginning of the title.  If you decide to put your company name on every page, it’s usually best to put it at the end of the title.  This would be a typical wedding page title with the company name: Nashville wedding limo – Sunshine limo Service.  For those of you with limited web experience, the official title is the name of the page on top of the browser window, not on the page.

Keep it brief – Short titles are typically better than long titles.

Overlap keyword phrases – Overlapping keyword phrases can rank well for multiple phrases.  A phrase like Nashville limousine service will rank well for Nashville limousine and Nashville limousine service.

Meta Tags – The Meta description tag is important.  This is the tag Google uses for the search excerpt.  Be sure to use a keyword phrase and write it for humans.  It doesn’t help with rankings, but it helps sell the site.  The keyword tag is a waste of time, so don’t worry about it.

Use a H1 header – Every page should have a descriptive H1 header with a keyword phrase similar to the page tile.

Break up the page – Most readers skim web pages.  Breaking up a page with subheadings defines the subject and makes it easier to read.  Bulleted lists and bold type also help readability.

Final Note

It’s very important not to do anything stupid with keywords to boost your rankings.  Unless you hold a doctorate in Computer Science, trying to fool Google’s algorithm is futile.  Google also employs thousands of real live humans to review questionable sites.

Keyword stuffing is a big red flag along with hiding keywords in the footer.  Always play it safe and write for humans, not Google.  Rankings are important, but every limo site needs a compelling pitch to sell the service.

Before the Boot Camp begins, let’s do something easy to improve your local SEO.  In recent years, Google figured out local search was the next big thing.  As a result, they created a mammoth business directory and tied it to Google Maps.  Now, when a search phrase like “Los Angeles limousine” is entered, a list of local businesses and a map appear before the search results.

This may sound crazy, but most limo companies have never claimed their Google business listing!  If you haven’t already done so, GO CLAIM YOUR GOOGLE BUSINESS LISTING.  You will need a Google account, a short description of your business, your contact information, and a logo or other images.

You can also claim your listing through Google Maps.

Improve Your Local Search Position

Once you’ve created a listing, improving your search position is easy.  Google uses the following factors in its local search algorithm:

Reviews – The more reviews you get, the better.  If you collect email addresses, simply follow-up your runs with a request for a review.  Whatever you do, don’t fake them.

Proximity – This factor has been in flux over the past year, but Google typically gives more weight to the businesses closest to the city center.  In the above local business results, most of the listings are in downtown Los Angeles.

Coupons- Adding a coupon will add value to your listing.

Keywords- Adding keywords to your company name and description is important.  Simply extending your company name is a good way to do this.  For example, if you optimized Diva Limousine, the listing would be “Diva Limousine of Los Angeles.”  The search phrase “Los Angeles limo” could be added to the company description.  It’s important not to look spammy.  A listing like “Diva wedding limo, prom limousine, airport limo” will eventually cause problems.

Categories – Your business listing allows up to five categories.  Using correct keyword rich categories that target specific customers is essential.  An ideal category for Diva Limousine would be “Los Angeles Limousine.”

Description – This isn’t a huge factor for search, but it’s the most important factor for sales.  You have 200 words to sell your company.  Make it your best pitch.

Videos – Add a video.  The video doesn’t have to be fancy.  A simple slide-show posted on YouTube is perfect.

Links – Relevant inbound links improve the value of any page including your Google business listing.  Create a link from your company website to your Google business listing and encourage clients to write a review.

Wrap Up

Unlike regular SEO, which can take months to see positive results, local search listings rise quickly.  Within a few weeks, you should see an improvement.  It’s an incredibly easy way to expand your marketing.

Considering most online activity is related to local content, securing a high local search position is imperative.   Your customers want to see your listing.  Now that Google is placing local search results first, it makes sense to optimize the results.

As Google ramps up its efforts, local search will increase in importance.  It’s the future of search.  By securing and optimizing your listing today, you secure your high search position for tomorrow.

The Limo SEO Boot Camp is a series of posts about helping limousine operators achieve high search rankings.

Search Engine Optimization is awesome.  It’s a true David & Goliath scenario.  You don’t have to rich or big to rank high.  You have to be smart.  With the right techniques, anyone can achieve high rankings.

When you do a Google search for “limo,” it doesn’t show big companies like Carey, Dav El, or Music Express.  It shows small operators who use SEO to dominate Google.  With the Limo SEO Boot Camp, you can do the same.

Why You Need SEO

If you operate a business service, you don’t need SEO.  When I worked for Empire International (One of the biggest limousine companies in the world) we had an unlisted phone number.  The account executives were responsible for acquiring clients, not the phone book.

The retail limo business is completely different.  It’s driven by constant marketing.  If you want drunken bachelors in the back of your limos, you have to go out and get them.

The phone book was once king, but the king is dead.  It got trampled by the Internet about a decade ago and the Internet never looked back.  The Yellow pages are for the AARP generation.  If you want the party crowd, you have to get serious about SEO.

How Does It Work?

Three companies dominate search.  These are Yahoo, Microsoft, and Google.  Google is so big the others don’t matter.

Google’s search rankings are determined by a variety of on-page and off page factors.

On-page factors include stuff like:

• Keywords
• Titles
• Meta descriptions
• Interlinking

Off-page factors include stuff like:

• Relevant links
• Anchor text
• Popularity of referring pages
• Age of referring links

Google uses these factors (along with many others) and creates its search algorithm.  This in turn determines a website’s page rank.

Shouldn’t I hire an SEO consultant?

If I had Five Thousand Dollars to blow, I would hire a consultant in a heartbeat.  I don’t.

SEO isn’t technical or complicated.  Anyone can do it.  It just takes time and patience.

It’s important to remember a local operator isn’t trying to rank for something ultra-competitive like “books” or “news.”   Achieving a high rank for a keyword like “Toledo limo” is relatively simple.  If the operator has strong content and relevant inbound links, he’s going to rank.

Up Next: Google Business Listings