One of the most common challenges I face from being an SEO South Carolina consultant is optimizing for keyword phrases in a low population state. For this post, I am mainly discussing the
natural, left handed results and not pay-per-click programs such as Google AdWords.
Imagine, for example, operating a commercial energy audit company in the state of South Carolina. Your primary customers are businesses, factories and warehouses that consume lots of power and your solutions help them lower energy costs which help their bottom line. You don’t have a large market of potential customers, but the ones you acquire as customers tend to have good budgets and they are profitable for you. Here is where things get interesting:
1. Around 95% of energy audit consultants work in the home/residential field.
2. In accordance with the above, 95% of all “energy audit + SC” type searchers are looking for home services.
3. There is not enough “commercial + energy audit + SC” type traffic to target in an SEO campaign.
4. You don’t want to use Google AdWords for a variety of reasons.
5. You are being forced to consider optimizing for the residential type keywords in an effort to try and see if some are actually looking for commercial services.
Over the last several years, I have seen the above scenario play out many times and there is no specific solution or magic bullet that solves this problem. Sometimes, non-relevant keywords are targeted, AdWords campaigns are started, and I have instances where the business expands to a new area such as Charlotte NC, where the market is larger and the associated search trends match.
In all of the search trend challenges, this SEO South Carolina consultant has realized one constant thing: People are evolving in how they search—they are getting smarter. They are using more specific phrases (long tail keywords) when they search, and this is slowly opening the door for new SEO opportunities for example businesses like the one I talked about today. If you would like to talk about an SEO strategy for your business, please give us a call today.
About the Author: Rhett DeMille, the owner of PalmettoSoft, is a leading search engine optimization consultant located in the Florida and Greater Carolina areas.
