# Key words



## In Demand

Do you think certain key words used in Google searches could vary by location ? 
like maybe in one part of the country they say " Painting companies" and in another "painting service" ? Just a thought.
RC spends more time on this stuff then anyone so she might have seen something on it.


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## RCP

I think keywords can vary by area for several reasons.
It could be local dialect, income/education levels. Hard to say when most reports are not broken down by area.
Ken (Pressurepros) once commented on the difference between "pressure washing" and "power washing". 
If painters are not licensed would people still search for "Painting Contractors"? 
Some people even put in commonly misspelled words!
I was just reading a blog where the author kept repeating "kitchen painters". I thought he might have run a report on key words and found out it was highly searched.
I did the same thing a while ago, I saw "green accent walls" was searched often. I did a Youtube video and it was on the first page the next day!
There are several keyword search tools like this.


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## daArch

about misspellings.

many of you may have read Jim Parodi's articles in PWC (Parodi on Paperhanging), he's also freaking SEO savvy.

His key words include his name in all sorts of derivations. "Tim", "Kim", "John" etc for "Jim", and too many variations of "Parodi" to list. 

I have as keywords, "wallpaper hanging", "Wallpaper installations", "wallpapering", "paperhanging", "paperhanger", and prolly a few more that I have forgotten. 

So YES, you need to think of all the variations that folks can use.

Parodi told me that he asked his wife how would she search for him. She googled something like "paper hanger - 845 " which is their area code. DOH! Others will use a zip code or the county. 

Go out and ask your friends and neighbors - or complete strangers - how would they google a painter .... or you in particular.


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## nEighter

so I heard there is a taboo #. Like don't go over it or Google will yank ya from it's searches. Correct?


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## DarthPainter

nEighter said:


> so I heard there is a taboo #. Like don't go over it or Google will yank ya from it's searches. Correct?


Not true. Google has dropped nearly all support for meta tags as it is. There are only a handful of search engines which still support them, which is why they are largely irrelevant, as I mentioned in your thread.

Most search engines use profiling to determine a site's usefulness and relevance: they profile things like web traffic, spelling consistency, broken html standards and errors, downtime, etc. Meta tags are only maybe a half of a half of a percent of profiling pages anymore. They were so abused back when google bombing was so popular that they became damaging to search engines rather than helpful.


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## RCP

Are you talking about the keywords in your HTML?

I would not worry about those as much as using the words in your website text in a meaningful way. Concentrate on the content of your site. Remember you are trying to attract people who want painting done, not search engines!
Get good pix, video, testimonials on your site.


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## DarthPainter

RCP said:


> Are you talking about the keywords in your HTML?
> 
> I would not worry about those as much as using the words in your website text in a meaningful way. Concentrate on the content of your site. Remember you are trying to attract people who want painting done, not search engines!
> Get good pix, video, testimonials on your site.


This. Metatags are irrelevant.


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## George Z

Never mind​


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## PressurePros

Keyword density is definitely important but, as Darth mentioned, not in the keyword meta tag. I honestly think Google skips that tag altogether. Keyword stuffing "XYZ Painting is a painting company that paints new construction and also paints residential houses" will not get you banned but it will gey you penalized in the SERP's (search engine results page). There is a certain density of keywords that Google likes but again, that is just a portion of the equation/algorithm. 

Back to the original topic.. what keywords do you use to rank? That's a tough one. Some people may search for "painters". Others may use "painting companies" or "painting company in philadelphia". Which one do you rank for? The answer is all of them. After you do some research and use common sense you pick 3-4 for your home page and optimize the page for those terms. You then build additional pages and rank them for the remaining phrases. Each one of those pages has to have inlinks built into it. then the whole site gets tied together with a properly anchored internal link structure. Oh yeah, before it gets too confusing, the title tag and your H1, H2, and H3 tags are also very important in determining page relevance in Google's eyes. 

As time goes on and competition on the web get stiffer it is becoming more time consuming and expensive to stay ranked.


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## In Demand

I am hitting pretty high on "residential painting fort wayne" and residential painters fort wayne".
"interior painting fort wayne" brings up a directory that I am in. "Exterior Painting fort wayne" brings up my craigslist ad.
I am coming up in just about every search I can think of for Fort Wayne, one way or another. Which 6 months ago when I started my site all that came up was Service Magic and CertaPro. I am still getting beat by CertaPro for page rank alot of times, but I am right under them, and since they are national it is a little harder to beat them out of the #1 spot.


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## RCP

Excellent job Modern!:thumbsup:
Do you also have house painter(s), home painting?


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## KLaw

ModernStyle said:


> I am hitting pretty high on "residential painting fort wayne" and residential painters fort wayne".
> "interior painting fort wayne" brings up a directory that I am in. "Exterior Painting fort wayne" brings up my craigslist ad.
> I am coming up in just about every search I can think of for Fort Wayne, one way or another. Which 6 months ago when I started my site all that came up was Service Magic and CertaPro. I am still getting beat by CertaPro for page rank alot of times, but I am right under them, and since they are national it is a little harder to beat them out of the #1 spot.


I just did a search for "painters fort wayne, in" and did not see you in the maps or organic search (1st page). I would think that would be a popular keyword. Anyways that is the primary search term I use to check out our presence on the web. Do you agree or not on that particular search term? Thanks.


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## KLaw

Modern - My bad - I did see you (5th or 6th) in the oragnic listing (nice job). Merchant Circle had your listing. :thumbup:


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## PressurePros

PressurePros is #2 among "pressure washing companies" in the world. Boo-yah! Well, that's where Google has us ranked anyway. ---> :jester:


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## KLaw

Pretty cool - Ken. Not that I didn't believe you I had to check it out myself and yep - You Are The Man - you came up as number 2. Nice work.:notworthy: I am coming up on page one for several search words and areas but I pay for that service.


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## RCP

PressurePros said:


> PressurePros is #2 among "pressure washing companies" in the world. Boo-yah! Well, that's where Google has us ranked anyway. ---> :jester:


Must be the blogs!:laughing:

Google Utah Painters and I am #1:thumbup:
Next, world domination!


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## RCP

fresh coat said:


> Pretty cool - Ken. Not that I didn't believe you I had to check it out myself and yep - You Are The Man - you came up as number 2. Nice work.:notworthy: I am coming up on page one for several search words and areas but I pay for that service.


Is this you?
Freshcoat

Do you hire out all your SEO? Any tips you can share?


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## MAK-Deco

boy I need to work on my SEO


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## KLaw

RCP said:


> Is this you?
> Freshcoat
> 
> Do you hire out all your SEO? Any tips you can share?


Not to bust your bubble, but I typed in "utah painters" and it went directly to this site ( a list never even came up just went directly to the below site). The site was: http://www.artistsofutah.org/artists/artdir1p.html

No - That is not my site you mentioned above. Although, I have a similar site that I use but get half-ass results. The site, that I pay for a company to maintain and create is working well. Yes - this site is 100% maintained and updated by an outside source. So, I've got no advice except that as an owner of a company I don't think maintaining and creating a website is a valuable use of my time. Plus, I am not good at it so this is one of those things I decide to delegate.


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## RCP

So is the one you pay have done separate completely different from the ones like these? They all seem to be the same.
What do you think the differences are that one gets you better results?
SEO? Website image?
Be kind of neat to have two different sites to compare!


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## KLaw

To be honest I have no idea! I pay x amount per month and they get the results. I send them pics (sometimes they create the video), videos, testimonials and they do the rest. I have no clue how they do it. Don't really care - as long as they continue to make my site 1st page, multiple listings on that 1st page - all is good:thumbup:. It's pretty cool - In one market - in the organic listing - I've got 75% of the listings (I am guessing they've got several "sister" sites that directly shoot 'em to my site?) Who knows- but it is starting to pay off.


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## RCP

Is this it FC?


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## RCP

Come on Freshcoat, share with us! Let's see your site!


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## nEighter

Keywords and Meta Tags. I know you guys said Meta Tags are NOT important but I found out today they are still relevant to search engines.

Here is an email I got today.



> Welcome to your Submitnet program. We hope you are getting the most out of your program. To help you on the road to search engine success, I have performed a personal review of your site, and confirmed that your site has been added to the submission queue. It will be submitted within 5 business days of your signup time.
> 
> This email is your personalized URL review report, summarizing your initial URL performance, with recommendations on how to best optimize your site. You can use this information to help you achieve the top rankings you desire. Also, don't forget to log in to your account and run our *Getting Started Wizard*. It is full of helpful information and step-by-step advice.
> 
> Please review your report below and if you have any questions regarding this report, please do not reply to this email but log in to your web hosting control panel and enter your request within the support area.
> 
> Your Site Review  I have the following comments and suggestions about your site:
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> Your site looks good. I have reviewed it, and I do not see any problems. However, I recommend you run the tools in your account for further testing to make sure it meets search engine guidelines and effectively uses the keywords you would like to focus on.
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> Your Tool Report Below we have included a Meta Tag Analysis report to get you started with the process of optimizing your website.
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> This tool report has analyzed the meta tags on your site and gives you feedback on any changes you may need to make. In order to optimize your search engine rank you should implement any changes listed under the recommendations section.
> 
> To run this and our other optimization tools, you may log in to your Submitnet program.





> Recommendations Below are the results of the meta tag tests that were run on your site. There are no major problems with your meta tags, but there are some minor problems that might be hurting your position on search engines. It is recommended you look over your tags and change them to fit the indexing guidelines. Test Status Comments Title
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> Your TITLE tag is 122 characters long, which is within proper indexing guidelines. For optimal results, make sure it specifically describes your product or service, makes proper use of 3 or 4 keywords, and is between 10 and 150 characters long. Meta Tag Keywords
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> Your KEYWORDS tag is 1530 characters long, which exceedes proper indexing guidelines. For optimal results we suggest a tag sized between 50 and 250 characters. Note that the keywords should be separated with commas rather than spaces. Meta Tag Description
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> Your site's DESCRIPTION tag is 391 characters long. Most search engines will only display 200 characters of your description. More importantly submission to some search engines will fail if your description exceeds 200 characters. It is highly recommended that you keep your description text under 200 characters. Extra Title Tags
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> You have no extra title tags. For best results, we recommend having only one of each meta tag. Extra Description Tags
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> You have no extra description tags. For best results, we recommend having only one of each meta tag. Extra Keywords Tags
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> You have no extra keywords tags. For best results, we recommend having only one of each meta tag.


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## LouLewyLewis

key words is very important on your web site, use a web sit grader to see what your score is. I use http://www.websitegrader.com/ and my score is a 72


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## PressurePros

NEighter, certain meta tags and aspects of them are very important. The title tag being the big one. The title tag should have your keywords in it. 

A lousy title tag:
Welcome to Joe Schmo Painting and Wallpaper

A good title tag:
Painting Company | Wallpaper Service | Pro Painters Dallas Texas

The only other importance of meta tags (to Google) is in the errors quoted above. People use them to keyword stuff. Google does not even need a description tag. most times it won't use it in the SERP.


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