Keyword help...

Hi Guys,

We are a Ford Dealer just outside of Boston and I've been trying to get to come on top when searching for "Ford Boston"

For some reason herbchambers dot com always comes up #1 and #2

any tips to get us to come up on top? I feel like we are optimized a lot better then they are. Am I missing something?

Our page is watertownford dot com.

Thanks for any help!

I have them beat for boston ford dealer and boston ford :-D

Thanks for the info. Sorry to sound like I don't know what I'm doing but, BL= Backlinks? DL=?

how do we increase our backlinks and DLs?

Thanks.

Also, what did you use to get that info. Is there a good SEO evaluation tool out there?

Thanks a lot!

Is that you Dino?

Thats 50 people per day maybe looking to buy something related to Ford which could ultimately be a car itself so I'd say yeah it is worth it for the site he/she is running.

I took a quick glance, I'm no expert [yet ;D ] but I'd say your page title is way to long.

Also there isn't any need to repeat 'ford' in your page title as many times as you can.

Are you using header tags? <h1> <h2> etc

I actually don't know about this bit, I haven't come across any articles yet that back this theory up but it maybe common knowledge, but maybe you could try 'bolding' some of your words in the text you have at the bottom - again i dont know how effective this is, maybe one of the other guys can help shed some light on that.

I also noticed your repeating some of your keywords such as 'used and pre-owned' again there's no need for that and it can look spammy to the engines.

Those are my quick views anyway

Hope they helped

EDIT: I just took a look at your competition as well, although he may have more backlinks there is definitely room for you to take that top spot, it looks to me as though their really pushing the branding of 'Herb Chambers' they don't have your keyword in their page title, all their header tags are related to Herb Chambers etc, clean up your messy bits and start building the backlinks and im pretty sure you'll take over this guy for that keyword especially considering your site is considered very good by google itself

Jordan

Thanks for the input. Unfortunately we use a 3rd party provider for our website so we don't have access to header tags and such. they do work with us real well and let us customize text, title and meta tags and create our own html pages.

I tired using pre-owned and used and other "redundant" things in there because people tend to search for it different on that end.

Where do you think we should take out ford? it's kinda hard to not "spam" ford as we are a ford dealer and every vehicle beings with ford lol

Thanks for the input. every little bit helps.

on Herb Chambers end, they have a huge site, you take a look they interlink all of their franchises and they have like 20 of them.

How do i get more back links? do I just submit to directories and search engines?

I sent you a pm with the info, but just for other guys, heres a good little article about the page title thing i was touching up on in my last post:

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/tactical-seo-how-many-termsphrases-should-i-target-on-a-single-page

[Sorry if i can't post links to that site mods, feel free to remove it if needs be]

Jordan

Directories are one way to gain links. Although, you have to make sure of where your links are being put (i.e. the page is followed versus no-followed. I am still not sure how to figure this out but hopefully one of the more knowledgeable members can chime in). Use your keywords in the anchor text. This is the actual text that is in the link (i.e. Ford Car Dealer- Boston. Not a specific term to target but to help you understand anchor text). The more of links, the more of a vote your site recieves which in turn gets you better placement.

You may also start writing articles about the car industry, how Ford models are better on gas compared to..... Search engines love content and articles can provide you with good content and possible link bait. Write articles on specific cars, comparisons of other vehicles to ford vehicles, professional reviews, etc. You can then go out and get links to point to these articles as well as submit them to a few article submission sites. If you create articles, be sure to create a few variations of the articles as you may get penalized for duplicate content if you submit to multiple places. With good content, you will not only attract the search engines but you will also answer questions many car owners or soon to be owners may have.

Good content and good links amongst other things will help you close the gap.

Hope this helps. Good luck and give us a progress report in a few months.

if you dont know anthing about bl or backlinks then dont worry

you need to concentrate into your business only.

simply create a blog and even forums on your products and services.

so that you can invite your old and new customers to discuss about ford products and services.

everyday you will get many backlinks from your blogs and forums.

you have unique products so that you will get enough peoples who are will to share theie views in your blogs and forums.

Thanks, where should we do that? Is there a good site out there to start our own blog?

It sounds to me like you need to do some specific keyword research.

Ford Boston is very Generic.

Lets face it, if you are looking for a ford F-150 you are not going to search for Ford Boston.

Concentrate on specific keywords such as Ford Pick Up Trucks etc.
As you have a specific location and market you are targeting I strongly recomend that you look into Geo-Targeting.

Setting up a pay-per-click account may also help. It won't help with organic listings but may get you some local traffic.

Im curious, how exactly do you implement geo-targeting?

There are a lot of things you can do to specifically target a particular area.

In Google Webmaster Tools, you can set a Geographical Location.
You can register your business to a particular area so that it comes up listed on the map in local based search results.

Putting specific data about the location in the page is a good thing to do.

Having teh site hosted in the region you are targeting is a good idea.

Getting links from local based and targeted sites is also important.

Then targeting the specific local based keywords.

Ok, thanks for the rundown. I was thinking it had to do with something more technical.

there are many blogs software coming free of cost

you can start with blogger.com of google

you can also ask your hosting company to host blog on another domain