Does your Arkansas company website need special Arkansas SEO? Is search engine optimization just different here in the land of the Hogs?
The short answer: no. Someday each state may have its own special search engine, but for now, Google reigns supreme, regardless of your state. The algorithm for search — even local search — in Arkansas is the same as in other states and the same strategies and techniques will be effective.
The long answer: it’s not just the search engines that are involved here.
Arkansas keywords
If you want to appeal to customers in Arkansas, you may need to choose different keywords from the ones you’d use if your target market were in another state. Think about it. If you’re in Northwest Arkansas searching for “Razorfest,” you’re looking for a wholesome family event sponsored by Champions for Kids, using “Razor” to remind people of the Razorbacks, an essential Arkansas icon.
Elsewhere, “Razorfest” might bring to mind a slasher movie retrospective.
Check Google Trends and you’ll find that search volume for “Razorfest” is so small that there is literally no data at all. This is a term people search for pretty much only in one small geographic area. Google will deliver results for that search, of course, but it’s too local for Google’s excellent data tools to notice.
Choose something a little less specific and Google Trends will show the level of interest in Arkansas compared with other states:
You can also see if there are specific variations on keywords that are more popular in Arkansas. But the quantity of information for our small state will often be too limited to be useful.
If your target demographic is in Arkansas, use your own data to determine the best Arkansas keywords for your website, rather than relying on third-party data that might not take local trends and customs into account.
Local search
And of course an Arkansas business can optimize for local search, bearing in mind that nowadays your actual physical location is one of the most important factors.
Read more about local search:
- Succeeding in Local Search
- Web Content for Local Search
- How People Look for Local Businesses
- Local Search for Local Healthcare
- Conquering Local Search
Reaching Arkansas customers
There may be differences in terminology from one place to another. There certainly are differences in the level of popularity of different products and services in different places. Demographics are different from one place to another.
This isn’t about search engines; it’s about understanding your customer.
If you particularly want to appeal to Arkansas customers, the techniques involved in making your website meet the needs of Arkansas customers are the same as the techniques for appealing to any subset of customers. You have to know what your customers and potential customers are searching for, what questions they’re asking, what information will be useful to them.
Then you have to have pages the provide that information. If you have the best pages on those subjects, and they communicate well with both search engines and people, you win.
Producing this kind of content is a specialized skill, and we’ll be happy to help you. You might prefer to work with an Arkansas company. You might like to meet face to face. Call us or use our simple contact form. We look forward to getting to know you.
Image by Noel Pennington
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