Yeeeeaaa... I am now number 3 on yahoo for my targeted keywords "cincinnati web designer" but on google im not in the top 100? Why? Is it because my pagerank is so low? Thanks

No.3 on Yahoo is great, well done!

 

Google is different kettle of fish - there are a lot of sites under "Cincinnati web design" so you will struggle for this keyword. I would suggest going more "local" and targetting your home town in your keywors, page titles etc "oxford ohio web design" has very few relative results.

Well done...you have done what most designers (I assume) hope to achieve....i.e. to be listed on page 1 in your home town, city or region.

 

I am not suggesting this is not a good idea, however does anyone actually get customers as a result of such searches?

 

 

I ask simply because I have had minimal success.

Thanks, for the replies. As for getting customers through search engines... i have only had like 3 searches for that keyword, so I guess it really dosent work that well but its always nice to be on the top.

Yes it's a good a way as any to demonstrate to a customer that you know what you are doing.

 

It seems so important to us (members) yet, in terms of results, do we give it a disproportionate amount of our time?

 

I did a small low budget job for a local client and using a very general search term (requested by the client at our first meeting) it comes out no. 1 on Google.

 

Brilliant you think...but, if the stats are to be believed, site visitors rarely (never) use this term.

 

The client and myself however have been totally brainwashed (from day one) into over-exaggerating its value.

Ya and with all that time you spent doing seo you could have been marketing

Congrats. I decided my site and found that I am ranked 6th in google and 2nd on yahoo for my main keyword choice

 

 

So I guess that the seo revamp I did on my site has paid off well

It sounds to me like you need to do some thorough research on your keywords. And then focus on them.

 

Pop over to SEOMOZ and download the keyword research pdf from there (i think its about $30) but well worth the money) as keyword research is the most important step in establishing successful SEM. As far as Yahoo is concerned, i 'd concentrate on google more as they share a huge chunk of the market about 3/4 and MSN / ASK/ Yahoo fight over the rest. So concentrate on google a little bit more.

 

One point to make also is that you are in the most competitve industry as most web designers can implement basic SEO and your fighting a constant battle day in day out, so be proud that your ranked in yahoo.

Congrats buddy!

 

PR has really nothing or very little to do with SERP rankings. There are certain scenarios to look at in terms of ranking in google:

 

Site maybe in the sandbox - google's way of filtering new sites

Keyword competition - a lot of other sites vying for the same keyword

Site got penalized - for some reasons like duplicate content, linking to bad neighborhoods, etc.

Site isn't optimize enough in terms of offpage factors (backlinks using your keywords as anchor texts) - google likes the offpage factors more as compared to yahoo which favors the onpage (titles, headings, meta, keywords, etc.)