Surfing For Strategies – Understanding Intent = Success – Cal Coaster September 2005

Hello there! Hope you & your business had a great summer. Big news! Angie & Angela just got back from the Search Engine Strategies conference in San Jose, and we’re full of ideas to make your websites EVEN better! We sat in on panels with Yahoo, Google, Ask Jeeves, Citysearch, and other major players. We saw industry leader Danny Sullivan speak, we saw the Googleplex, and got to go to a “Google Dance”! I think our heads were spinning on the way home, but it was well worth it.

Surfing for Strategies

Our focus at the SES conference was the “organic tract”, which means the good ‘ol FREE search results. So much has changed in the industry; yet the Organic search fundamentals are still the same:

1. Build good titles, descriptions and meta tags for your pages so searches can find them

2. Build for your user, talk to your user, think & LINK like your user

3. Content is STILL king

This is good news for all of us – we’re on the right track! In addition to the fundamentals some new factors are now considered in searches. We are hearing across the board that blogs, RSS feeds, and dynamic sites are all ranking well. Before, it was difficult for search engines to pick up blogs & feeds on your website because they had complicated programming, and updated so fast. All that has changed now, and if you have dynamic scripts like these on your website, the searches LOVE it. We have plans to implement these little treasures in your website so you can reap the benefit, we’ll address that further in a future Cal Coaster.

Toll Free is the place to be

To better serve the recent call volume Cal Coast has been receiving, we’ve upgraded to a toll-free number! Now, instead of having to keep multiple phone numbers saved for our different departments, you have one universal number:

949-229-5932

When you dial our toll free line, select your desired department. Our service will ring ALL cell phones for the people in that department so you can get a quicker response. Should all lines be busy, you can leave a voicemail for us, and we will return it promptly.

And….We’ve Moved!

Cal Coast now has a new address to mail your invoices & payments to:

27881 La Paz Rd. G-229
Laguna Niguel, CA 92677

If you are not set up on autopay, please send all mail correspondence to our new address. It’s very important for prompt delivery to remember the “G-229” when you address our envelope – thanks!

Understanding Intent = SUCCESS

Another thing search engines are working very hard to understand is the searchers INTENT. Intent is something not many of us consider, but it’s essential. The keywords your website is optimized for should focus on your user’s intent. As you know, many users are online with the intent to research. After they complete the research phase, they act. Research phrases are more general, have more traffic, and are perceived to be more desirable. But ARE THEY?

Let’s use a case study to better visualize. I’ll use Real Estate, but this can be applied to any industry. If we pretend… and go along the INTENT slippery slope, the searcher probably started searching for “Real Estate” to see if that was a good investment. Real Estate is a very general researching term, as you can tell by the number of people who typed it into searches recently:

From research, searcher learns that California has booming Real Estate, particularly in Orange County.

Searcher gets the job in Tustin Ranch and wants to live there. Its time to act

Notice how the numbers dwindle as we get more specific. After considering the scenario, its obvious the small amount of targeted traffic is such higher quality. Cal Coast is here to help you clarify what keywords would mean a sale for your website, so you can better serve your target market. Let us know how we can help you today!

Advanced Access & Virtual Assistants

Our friends at Advanced Access offer a great resource for their clients by using a Virtual Assistant referral network. Cal Coast has always worked off of referrals only, but we would like to expand to serve a larger area. We’d like to take a moment to ask you to write a testimonial for our services, so we can be placed on the referral board. Don’t worry, we won’t take on any new clients in your area, we are looking for more clients outside of CA! Simply respond to this email if you have a moment!

Thanks for your time – hopefully we’ve helped explain some of the search trends & how to use them to your advantage today! We appreciate your business!!

Thanks Cal Coaster Subscribers!

Sincerely,

Cal Coast Web Design, Inc.

info@CalCoastWebDesign.com

http://www.CalCoastWebDesign.com