Consider that you are designing a WordPress website for a client, Debbie, who is a mobile hairdresser based in Paradise Nevada. Paradise is a town right next to the city of Las Vegas. In fact, part of the famous Las Vegas Strip is actually in Paradise rather than Las Vegas City.
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Mobile hairdressers do not work from a fixed address, they go to their clients to perform haircuts. Debbie is more interested in ranking for searches such as “Las Vegas haircuts” than “Paradise haircuts” because most of her potential clients are tourists who don’t even know that Paradise exists.
However, when you search for a business in Google using Las Vegas, results will predominantly show businesses whose zip code is in Las Vegas rather than neighboring towns such as Paradise.
Local SEO is difficult enough but ranking for a city where your business is not registered makes it even more difficult.
How can you help Debbie get business from Google?
Do some keyword research
Your first step in designing the website should be doing some keyword research. Try and imagine what Debbie’s clients would type into Google and use online tools to get information on which are the most popular queries. Have a look at our article Finding SEO keywords for a WordPress site if you need help.
In the USA, there are on average 1.5 million searches for “hair salon near me” in Google every month. Drilling down to searches for mobile hairdressers, we can see that “mobile hair salon”, with 5400 searches per month on average, is much more popular than “mobile hairdresser” or “mobile hair stylists”. But that the search term “haircut at home” is more popular again.
However, after discussion with Debbie, you feel that “Mobile hair salon” will be the best keyword to target as she is hoping to target tourists rather than people at home.
Digging around some more in keyword results, you may see that Google users search with many related search terms linked to types of hair service (hair cutting, hair extensions, perms, straightening) and searches specifically for men’s, women’s and children’s hairdressers.
Because Debbie does haircuts and hair extensions for men, women and children, you may want to consider creating specific pages for these services. In every case, add Las Vegas to your keyword.
- Mobile Hair Salon Las Vegas
- Women’s haircuts Las Vegas
- Men’s haircuts Las Vegas
- Children’s haircuts Las Vegas
- Hair extensions Las Vegas
Using keyword on the site
Ideally you should create pages for each of your keywords.
The keyword “Mobile hair salon Las Vegas” would be great for the homepage of Debbie’s site. You can add it as part of the page’s title.
Also make sure that you use it in the SEO title too and include it in the homepage’s meta description.
These are SEO tags that you can use to optimize the page for Google, but the most important thing to do is write some unique content for the homepage. It is recommended that you publish at least 300 words on this page and that you use the term “Mobile Hair Salon Las Vegas” at least once. Keep to the subject of haircuts and Las Vegas and you won’t go far wrong.
You may also want to create other pages for the web site: About Me, Book Online and pages targeting other keywords that also present Debbie’s services: Women’s haircuts Las Vegas, Men’s haircuts Las Vegas, Children’s haircuts Las Vegas and Hair extensions Las Vegas.
You can link all these pages together using a menu which will look something like this:
About Me | Women’s haircuts | Men’s haircuts | Children’s haircuts | Hair extensions | Book Online
For every page targeting keywords, make sure to use the keyword in the page Title, SEO Title and write at least 300 words for each. Get more information about optimizing posts from our article Optimize WordPress posts for a keyword.
Should you show Debbie’s address in Paradise?
You may not see the point of showing Debbie’s address in Paradise when she wants to work in Las Vegas. Debbie may also be worried that clients show up at her home address where her business is registered.
However, it is not a good idea to hide a company’s business address on its website. Google may consider websites where the owner is not easily identifiable as low quality and rank them lower. It also uses the business address found on websites to link them to business information found in official registries and directories. Companies that are cited on official records and are listed in other business directories will rank better in Google Maps and for local searches. It is important that the postal address and telephone number listed on Debbie’s website are the same as those used in official records and other websites. Google may even use the Nevada State Board of Cosmetology license registrations to check whether Debbie is a registered hair care service provider.
Add the business address to at least one page of the website. You can add a mention that Debbie does not provide services at this address.
Should you add LocalBusiness schema?
For the same reasons as above, it is strongly suggested that you identify Debbie’s business address by adding structured data schema.
With SEOPress PRO you can add the Schema to any page of the website using SEO > PRO > Local Business feature. Set the Business type to Hair Salon.
Using Google My Business to indicate a service area
If Debbie’s company has been registered for few months, it may already be listed in Google when you search for the company name. She can click on the “Own this business?” link in the local knowledge panel to claim it on Google My Business. Otherwise, she will have to request the creation of a business profile directly from Google My Business.
It is recommended that Debbie claims the profile with her own Google My Business account. She can add you as a user of her profile to allow you to make changes.
The most important change to make for Debbie is to set a Service Area for her business.
Go to the “Info” tab in Google My Business. You can click on the pencil icon next to Add service area. A popup will allow you to search and select cities. You can choose Las Vegas, Paradise and other nearby towns, or just use Las Vegas Valley.
Once you have a Service area set, you can also choose to not show a business location. Edit business location and click on Clear address.
You will still need to give Google a postal address to validate the profile.
See full help on this help page by Google.
Will it work?
Applying all these changes increases the chances that Debbie will be listed in local search results for Las Vegas, either in the Google Maps results or the localized search results.
Using Las Vegas in the title of the home page increases the chances of the homepage featuring in search results. This plus the use of Service Area in Google My Business will increase the chances of appearing in Google Maps and in the top 3 searches in Las Vegas despite the company not actually being in the city.
