I need to rank high locally

[NiX]

In the day time I fix PC's so I can pay the bills. I advertise in the local paper and im getting pretty crap response. Anything from 1 - 6 calls a week, which is barely enough to pay the bills if I manage to.

I have tried adsense and I have pay silly money (bearing in mind i have none) for clicks, and i'm not really seeing the benefit either. I've paid of £20 for 20 clicks, and out of those only a few have turned into work.

I need to rank high for the obvious key words in my local area, and could really use some help for some surefire ways to get me on the first page of google.co.uk for "pc repair brighton" or "pc help brighton" or a mix.

I have a site, and I dont think it looks too bad either, and code wise it's ok. I'm just not getting the visits, atm 1-3 a day organic.

Woudl paying to list in some higher PR directories help?

[matt1982]

Well there are quite a few local directories. When I first started out with web design I put adverts in my local fish and chip shops. These have turned out to be some of the best repeat jobs I have had. What else do people have to do when they are waiting for their fish to fry but stare at the advertising boards. Another place to try is Church magazines, a lot of people dont have a clue about computers but have them to keep in touch with younger offspring.

Aside from that what did google adwords tell you were the best for you? I would try and get some links with the anchor text: "city/town pc repair". I cant imagine it being too competitive if it is try the next town down the road

Some local online directories may help just to get you on a page where people are actually looking. Free index appears to come up for the first term you listed.

Some ideas there for you to be getting on with. Word of mouth will no doubt be a big help in your line of work. I will try and think of some more ideas.

Matt

[DaveJ|UK]

I don't think PPC will be good for your niche, although a few jobs from 20 clicks sounds pretty good! If you had 3, you're converting at 15%.

I'd guess you charge about £50/hour plus parts... ~£7 per lead isn't much, is it?

However in your business, most of your work should come from word-of-mouth and repeat customers.

If you're just dealing with home users at the moment, try and get into small businesses. You can get a maintenance contract with them, meaning they pay you a fixed amount each month and you do whatever is necessary to keep them up and running. Obviously this doesn't include parts.

[efix]

This is what I do for clients to bring them local business and it works.

I do a keyword research and determine a list of keyword and list them on excel. Don't use too high or too low daily search counts keywords, but in between. If you are doing a ppc, then you might already know good kws that converts for you. Kw research is a very important part of this and none of the following will matter if you do not have good targeted key phrases.

Next you determine a page for each keyword. With the home page being your hardest kw. And paste the URL in the excel sheet you started. I strongly advise 1 kw per page. If you do not have a page for a keyword, call it 'new page'.

Next you write a meta description for each kw/pages on the spreadsheet. Use the kw twice with the first one being the first word of the description.

Now you need 300 to 500 words of content per page with a kw density of 5% ish. I do a word doc per kw. This is very time consuming but is the most important. Good content is king! And remember that ppl will read it, not only bots, so make it read nicely.

You are now ready for site optimization.

The navigation should use your kws in the text link.

It makes it really easy if you target one kw per page. This is what I do:
URL: /kw.html
Title: kw - site name
Meta kw: "kw" (nothing more)
Meta desc: paste from excel
H1: kw
Paste you content.

Now interlink your pages a little. Build some links from within your content, using the kw in the link.

That's it. Now if this is not working in Google, build some incoming links, but Yahoo and MSN should rank you no problem.

Good luck Nix!

[NiX]

~Thanks for all the replies guys, I will respond fully when I can

Funny enough I suddenly got enough calls to keep me busy for the weekend and a few days into the week. So things are looking up momentarily

[matt1982]

Make sure that you give them a couple of your business cards etc to spread the love sorry i meant word

[xgenious]

Nix - local rankings requires very little work typically - depending upon your competition. You need to step back and really think of how you can differentiate yourself from others in your field.

PPC = Visibility, Organic SEO = Visibility - either way you're getting targeted viewers.

I would decide a monthly budget - and find your break even point - then slowly increase your monthly budget until you have enough business from word of mouth to not worry about actively promoting your business.