google

[Tom N]

Anyone actual advertise with google.
Like pay them monthly to be guaranteed to be on page one of a search that would include a bunch of key words for your county.

I was considering it for boat detailing in Lee county as I do get quite a bit of business out of cape coral (more than half the homes there are on water), but I have had so much bad luck in the past with paid advertising.

[ArmstrongDetailing]

If you built your site with those keywords throughout the subsequent pages you would get listed high enough in the free listings.

[EcoAutoCT]

Originally Posted by Troy@DetailCity

If you built your site with those keywords throughout the subsequent pages you would get listed high enough in the free listings.

+1

Just read up on keywords and SEO, make the changes and give it some time for the engines to crawl your updated website. All that will get you on the first page of multiple sites.

edit* Unless your first page and local area is saturated with detailers, then it might be more difficult and paying for sponsored results may be of greater benefit with more immediate results.

[Beemerboy]

On key word searches for Google, I have learned this

If you want to get the biggest bang for the buck, your key words need to be specific to your area.

Example, if you want local detail jobs your list key words or phrases should be

"detailing,Santa Rosa"

Rather than

"detail, northern california"

You pay by the hit with Google, so you want to make sure that your key words are specific to your area. If someone wants a detailer in Santa Rosa (my area) then that's how I list the key word...listing as just Northern Cal, could be someone a 100 miles from me, that doesn't do me any good.

You want to pay google top dollar for the specific key word hits, the more that you pay for these hits the better your chances are at getting good qualified hits in your area.

[tmacsad]

Originally Posted by Troy@DetailCity

If you built your site with those keywords throughout the subsequent pages you would get listed high enough in the free listings.

Troy is right. Thats what I do

[ArmstrongDetailing]

Originally Posted by Tom N

I was considering it for boat detailing in Lee county as I do get quite a bit of business out of cape coral (more than half the homes there are on water),

You are no competition to me down there especially with boats.

Just do me a favor and keep words like auto detailing in sarasota or bradenton off your site. I will return the favor by not having boat detailing in North Port or any place south of there on mine.

Shoot I'm tempted to take boat detailing off all together.

[Tom N]

Originally Posted by Troy@DetailCity

You are no competition to me down there especially with boats.

Just do me a favor and keep words like auto detailing in sarasota or bradenton off your site. I will return the favor by not having boat detailing in North Port or any place south of there on mine.

Shoot I'm tempted to take boat detailing off all together.

I really think we are in a different spectrum all together.
I push the boats more than anything and rv`s in rv season. As for cars I cater to the quicker wash and waxes. Granted mine are a little more in depth than the guy who is advertising deluxe details for $50 but I dont cater to high end vehicles and I dont really like doing paint corrections. Takes to damn long. Lately anytime I have gotten a request for a quote on paint correction of any kind I have referred them to your website.

I hate this time of year. Rains to much and business is always slow. Of coarse I xxxxx about being to busy during the season months and end up turning work away.

[showroom21]

Adwords( The ads on the right side of the page) are a good start, just make sure to use optimum keywords, but the place you want to be in is the Organic Results(The left side of the page). You can pay someone to get you to the top of these results but I just learned all I could about SEO and made it there myself under the keywords that were important to my market. Plus it was all free, didn't have to pay anyone, and my phone never stops ringing.

[Lowprofile]

There are many ways to get your page to rank on the first page in the 3 major search engines. Utilize Google Analytics. Its free and probably one of your best tools. It also will show you keywords. Also, it will take time to get to the first page. Submit your site to the 3 major search engines, submit a site map, and post meaningful content on your site.

[gvilledetailing]

all of these are true, I would also submit the site to as many free local listings you can. Check your competitions backlinks to see where they are being linked from. Like previous users have said. Have good content and select which targeted keyword phrases to optimize your website for and watch it climb the rankings.

One thing you have to make sure you do though is always check your rankings. One day you may be at the top while the very next day you are a few spots down. Seo is constantly changing and so should your tactics. Check out seomoz and read the blog there. They are the industry standard and provide a ton of resources. If you learn to do it on your own you will be better off. Yes you can pay an seo firm to get you up to the front, but thats it you are there and they are done. Other sites will see that you jumped them and take corrective action. This is why it is good to know how to do it. It will save you a lot of money in the long run.