St. Louis Business Expo – Oct 18
The biggest business expo of the year.  An entire day of terrific speakers (including myself) on a wide variety of topics.  Also, a speed banking opportunity and tons of vendors!

How to Build Your Credit Profile – Oct 18
The Saint Louis Small Business Meetup Group is awesome.  This month’s speaker is Willie Smith from WCS Credit Sense.  Learn how to identify and repair credit report errors and find money to run your business.

Using Video to Increase Your Website Traffic & Sales – Oct 20
Another great meetup, this one dedicated to helping business owners get on top of Google, Yahoo! and Bing searches for their industry.  This month’s class is all about video & how to use it to get to the top of the search engines.  Speaker: Mason Duchatschek

Show Me the Blog – Oct 21-22
The second annual SMTB conference will feature speakers from various Internet Marketing and Social Media outlets.  Topics will include new media, social media, SEO, blogging and technology.

St Louis isn’t a huge town.  It’s not like New York or LA where limos are seen every day.  If you see one here, chances are it was rented for some sort of event, not because a famous person is cruising by.  And this isn’t Vegas, where they’re waiting by the hundreds at the airport.

I imagine that owning a limo rental company can be a bit stressful.  Those rides aren’t cheap, they have a somewhat high need for maintenance (especially cleaning) and need to be on the road more often than not.  So keeping the limos booked is a huge priority.  The following is a few things I’d do if I owned such a company.

First and foremost, I’d get a website. I’d fill it with pictures of people having fun, enjoying a night on the town.  I’d have a wedding specials section with pictures of brides laughing with their girlfriends, toasting with champagne.  Pricing would be easy to find, and pictures of each limo would be available.  I’d create special pages for certain events.  Weddings is the obvious one, but so are birthdays, bachelor and bachelorette parties, Girl’s Night Out and even Father-Daughter dances.

I’d also make the limo pages easy to share.  When people are thinking about getting one, often they email their friends and tell them to take a look.  Or choose between a few different ones.  “Should we get the Hummer or the Cadillac?”  Share buttons on these pages would be mandatory.  The buttons could be one-click posts.  When they click on the Facebook button, it automatically creates a post to the brides facebook page and has a thumbnail and link back to the site.  A really smart limo company could even build a ‘Help Me Choose’ page that compared two limos on a page, listing all of their benefits, accessories and prices.  Then that page could be shared amongst friends.

A search for limos in St Louis brings back only 5 organic results – and only two of those are actual limo companies in St. Louis.  One is a pagerank 2, the other a 0.  That means a nicely SEO’d website could climb to a page one ranking fairly quickly.

We can’t forget to add the site to the Google LBC, either.  This is pretty crucial nowadays.  Fill in the profile completely and create a few special categories.  Be careful not to put geographic-related words in those categories, though, as it is against Google’s guidelines and will surely get your submission rejected.  Don’t forget to geotag any pictures you upload, and get your listing verified as quickly as possible.

Video is another great tool you could take advantage of.  Make a few video interviews of your (still sober) guests at the end of the night and post them on a ‘memories page’ (at an additional cost, perhaps).  Use some of the good videos on your LBC page as well.

You could also give video tours of each limo, highlighting the special things about each.

A limo driver blog would be a great linkbait and content tool.  Post funny stories about things that you’ve seen as a driver, interesting facts about driving such a long vehicle, and use the blog to post content around the job in general.  A well written and consistent blog specifically about driving a limo would start to get comments from other drivers, thus increasing your overall content.  Be careful of local competitors who’d try to spam comment your blog, but let them comment if they don’t link out in every post.

Lead Generation

Now let’s talk about getting those limos full every night.  Beyond having an SEO’d website, there definitely needs to be plenty of ‘Call to Action’ buttons on the site.  Have them big and obvious.  Reserve this Limo Now or Compare this Limo.

Consider advertising on websites that have your same target audience, for instance St. Louis Weddings.  The rates aren’t that bad and they’ve already got a captive audience.

Team up with local florists and have them give out your cards, perhaps with a $25 discount attached.  Do the same for DJ places and funeral homes.

Target Facebook ads to groups related to brides, grooms and weddings in general.  Offer a Facebook Discount that they can only get by Liking your page.  Have a monthly contest for a free 4 hour limo ride (driver’s tip not included).

Find some local What to Do in St Louis type websites and get a listing there.  See the Arch from a limo might attract some families with an adventurous side (and it’d have your limos running during daytime hours).

The web is ripe in St. Louis for a limo company that’s ready to pounce.  There’s little to no online competition, and a well executed online marketing plan could net some serious money for one that’s willing to jump in headfirst.

There are tons of ideas for an industry like this – what are some I missed?

Back in May, I spoke to the St. Louis Small Business Meetup Group about getting traffic, climbing the search engine rankings and beyond.  It was a great meetup in a small restaurant in Kirkwood – a terrific atmosphere and I think you’ll enjoy this video.  In it you’ll learn:

• Why Shotgun Marketing is a think of the past
• Why You need a CMS
• What Google Thinks About Your Site
• How to Spy on Your Competitors
• Plenty More Tips

Prerequisites

There are some assumptions we’ve got to make here.  The dentist should already have:

• An office
• Existing patients
• A website

Step One – Find A Keyword Niche

Currently the search term ‘dentist st louis‘ comes up with just 860,000 results.  While this may seem like a lot, in reality it’s not.  Any result under a million is worth looking in to, and possibly ranking for.  According to the Google Keyword Tool, 4,400 people searched this phrase last month.

Switching the phrase around to ‘st louis dentist‘ results in 1.1 Million results.  Slightly more competition for nearly the same phrase. But check this out – this phrase gets twice as many (9,900) average searches a month!

And thirdly, the phrase ‘dentist saint louis‘ yields an incredible 2.7 Million results, yet only shows around 12,100 per month.  Which is a better deal?

I’m going with number two.  A number one result on Google for ‘st louis dentist’ would be a nice place for any local dentist.  Who wouldn’t want 9,900 potential new clients a month?

Step Two – Analyze the Competition

Now I need to do is see who’s currently ranking, how ‘valuable’ their website is, and how difficult it is going to be to overtake their #1 position.  (I should mention here that #1 position is optimal, but not always attainable. But being on page one definitely is)

There’s some good news here – a search for ‘st louis dentist’ shows me that the first two results are not very relevant. One is a site called Doctor Oogle, a directory-type site, and the second is another listing site of dentists in saint louis county.  Still no actual dentist website.  In fact, you have to scroll two-thirds of the way down the page before you find an actual dentist site -not counting the locally optimized results which we’ll talk about in step five.

At time of this writing it’s Dr. Derek Vadnal in Bridgeton.  His site is a template from ProSites, his call to action is sad, and the entire ‘above the fold’ area of his website is used very inadequately.  He scores a sad 55/100 on website grader. He could easily be overtaken. (Sorry Doctor Vadnal, I hope you aren’t reading this! – Or maybe I hope you are!)

Step Three -Audit My Website

Is my website up to date? What was the purpose of my having this site built in the first place?

1. Because I heard from my customers that I needed one
2. Because my competitors have one
3. Because I needed a way to generate targeted leads (ie new customers)

In most cases it’s not number three, although it should be.  But no matter which it is, we need to dig deeper.  A website SEO audit is a great place to start.  This ten-thousand-foot view of your site will reveal your strengths and weaknesses.  I’d then follow that up with a report from Website Grader. Between these two reports I should know whether or not I need to rebuild my site or just fix a few things and press on.  If a rebuild is recommended, this will need to be completed before going to step four.

While we’re speaking about your website, what is your URL (domain name)? Are there opportunities for you to get something that’s more memorable? Is yours easy to remember? Easy to say, like over a phone, without having to spell it out?

Guess what – dentist-saint-louis.com is available.  But probably not for long.

Step Four – OnPage Changes

There are some quick changes I’d do to my website.  On the home page I’d make sure my title was ‘St Louis Dentist John Doe’.  Not the name of your business, not the name of the dentist, but the number one keyword/keyphrase I want to rank for.

I’d also make sure that my Heading Tag 1 (H1) is very similar.  maybe just ‘St Louis Dentist’ or even ‘Saint Louis Dentist’.

Next, I’d make sure my website’s contact form was very easy to find, that it is short and sweet.  I’d also make sure that my phone number (using call tracking) was at the top of every page on the site and that I either have a 314 and 618 number or a 314 and toll-free number.  There are plenty of people out there that still don’t have long distance.

Next, I’d have my picture and a picture of each of my staff members.  Maybe even their own page.

It goes without saying that I’d have a blog.  If it were my office, and I had a staff, I’d have each one of the staff write at least one post a month.  If I have 4 staff members, that’s one a week plus what I write.  The blog would answer questions about everything related to my business – How do I brush correctly? Can I get cavities from sugar free gum? Do toothpicks really help? What if I don’t floss? etc etc.  Easy stuff to answer.  Answer it and become the expert.

Most importantly, make sure every page has a clear call to action.  Get a free report, first visit is $50 off, multiple family member discounts, whatever it is – make sure it gets your website visitors to give you some sort of contact information.  This is imperative.

Step Five – Getting Local

There’s no doubt that Google is getting more and more local, serving up results that include dentists right in your area, a map with pinpoints and even click-to-call options.  So you’ve gotta be there.

Filling out your profile on Google Places, Yahoo Local and similar sites is imperative.  (If you can’t do this, or don’t have the time to tackle them all, give me a shout. I know a guy who is awesome at local placement).

You have no choice on this one. You’ve gotta do it.

Step Six – Getting Social

Here’s where it gets fun.  I’m not just talking about signing up for twitter – I’m talking about building an online reputation as the dentist of choice for St. Louis folks.  Here are some ideas:

• Read Trust Agents, then sign up and actively use a twitter account.
• Create a Facebook page that tells people about your practice. Have giveaways that are only for your fans.
• Encourage your patients to share their X-rays on Facebook, flickr, twitter, whatever, however
• Encourage patients to write a review of their visit on Yelp, Mixx, Yahoo Local, etc
• Do a monthly newsletter that sells nothing but teaches everything. Use blog post teasers from the past month to get readers back to your site.
• Have a tooth fairy program – online or offline. Encourage kids to bring in their baby teeth for some sort of exchange. Use it as a teachable moment for good hygiene.  Maybe a new toothbrush or something.
• Don’t be the anti-candy guy. Be the better-alternative-to-candy guy or the candy-is-ok-in-small-amounts guy. Promote chocolate chip granola bars, oatmeal with fruit, smoothies, etc.
• Blog about funny things that happen in the office. Become likeable – not just another dentist.
• Partner with Foursquare to encourage check ins.
• Blog about pets and their teeth. Dog and cat lovers will be impressed.

Step Seven – Target Local Keyphrases

Here’s where it all ties together.  Starting an SEO campaign around the keywords you found in step two.  Consistent link building paired with blogging will assure that your site will climb the rankings on Google, Bing and Yahoo!.

Since we’re in St. Louis, you’ve got a few different ‘versions’ of keywords that you can target – ie STL, St Louis, Saint Louis.  These will all produce slightly different results in the search engines, so target them all.  Don’t forget zip codes and larger ‘towns’ that people type in often such as St Charles, South County, Florissant, Wildwood, etc.  Obviously not all of them may be your target audience, but if they are don’t forget to build links with those words in them.

If you haven’t already, fix all of your errors that came up in your SEO audit, or if you had a new site built, consider running another audit on the new site. If you use Firefox, check out the plugin called SEO Doctor. Make sure all of your pages are near or at 100%.

Start creating pages (or blog posts) around frequently asked questions.  Then build links to those pages through your Facebook fan page, twitter account, etc.  Become the expert for all things dentist in Saint Louis.

Summary

If I were a dentist, I’d be all over the online space.  There is no clear leader when it comes to searching for a dentist in St Louis, and sooner or later someone will step up and become that authority.

But what’s worse than a monkey running around your back yard? A business owner that is letting monkeys market his business.

Don’t let some monkey run your marketing campaign, telling you that you need to be on the radio, on billboards or even on the side of the Metro.  Where you need to be is on page one of Google for your main search term.

And there’s only one guy in Saint Louis that can do that – me.

I’m the number one SEO in Saint Louis (Search Engine Optimization) guy for a reason – because I get your business to the top of Google, Yahoo!, Bing and many other search engines.

Don’t waste any more money on untargeted shotgun marketing schemes.  Get that monkey out of your neighborhood and hire someone that can get you targeted traffic that’s ready to buy.

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!