More SEO

Yesterday I wrote a blog about search engine optimization, today there is a bit of news that reminds me about an important aspect of DIY SEO - sometimes the web is local.

In the article linked above you will see that Google has put a lot of effort into developing local geography relevance for when you use a city name in your search. People very often need to find something or someone in your area and this can help in your search engine optimisation efforts especially when you are using much-contested phrases (eg. travel and tourism sectors). Some great businesses are built on this idea in fact.

Back when I taught asp.net I made the concious decision to not do overseas (wife and small child, hassle factors, not worth it even though I really enjoy foreign travel) so it made sense to optimise for "asp.net training uk". Thanks to my >100 articles on aspalliance and my site structure I had number 1 position in google for the majority of the time (some months siliconbeach would take top spot, grrr!) but I always had number one spot for "asp.net training leeds" which was my most profitable market (I didn't charge for travel time only travel and accomodation expenses so sticking local made financial sense).

I guess this just boils down to picking your battles and thinking like a customer/visitor. Also by restricting your market you can make yourself more appealing by appearing like a specialist. I could never compete with the real experts like Steve on a global scale but I did quite well in my own pool.