Is St Louis and Saint Louis the same thing in the eyes of search engines? Should you care?
We’ve got a bit of a unique situation here. Our fair city is one of the few that is searchable in many different ways – saint louis, st louis, stl and so on. But does it really matter to you how people searching for local merchants?
You better believe it.
Paging Doctor Lou
Looking up a search like saint louis orthodontist and st louis orthodontist may look pretty much the same, but there actually are differences in rankings, sites listed and ranking order.
Do the same thing for stl orthodontist and you’ll not only get s different set of results, but Google doesn’t even provide the 7-pack of local listings.
All three searches are different. So what – right?
In This Case, Hoarding is Good
Have you seen that show where they go into people’s houses that hoard things? There are items stacked on everything. You can barely navigate the homes most of the time. Well, when it comes to visitors and rankings, hoarding is good. You want all the visitors for all the related queries, no matter how they decide to put in the Saint Louis part.
If they put St Louis, you want it. If they put stl, you want it. So optimize your website and build links for all versions. Rank for them all.
Zip it Up
Don’t forget zip codes. I was very surprised at recent data that showed the amount of people typing in service 12345. People are typing in services and products and tacking on a zip code so they can only get local queries. If you offer a local service or sell a certain product at a brick-and-mortar store, you should consider ranking for zip codes, too.
Paid Listings Matter, Too
If you’re one of the crazy few that are putting money into PPC instead of SEO, you should note that having all versions of Saint Louis in your keyword list isn’t going to hurt you any. Same for zip codes. Do it.
Don’t have time to rank your website for all these local phrases? Hire me for your local SEO efforts and watch your competitors weep!
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