Before we write this blog post I want to stress that all onsite efforts were 100% Google friendly techniques. Most of the techniques we utilized can even be found in the official Google SEO guide . Search engine optimization is one of the most powerful tools that websites have to attract business. Increasing onsite SEO can lead to higher rankings and more visibility. In popular and competitive fields, SEO has to be extremely specialized, because most websites use the same keywords as each other, which results in extreme overcrowding in search engines. In competitive fields, it is very difficult to come out on top – unless the onsite SEO is done right.

The Challenges

The client is a real estate company that buys distressed homes in the Greater Los Angeles area. At its inception, their site was smaller than average website in a very competitive field (real estate), and did not use onsite SEO – this includes not using keywords that would increase their visibility on search engines. Essentially, Osborne Homes did not exist on the major search engines, because it was so difficult to find, and so was crowded out by the larger, more competitive real estate giants. If you’d searched for Osborne Homes on any major search engine when it was first created, you were unlikely to find it.

Their Strategy

To tackle the problem, we began to prepare an onsite SEO strategy. One of the most important aspects of their strategy was to think like their customers, who were often emotional and needed to be able to sell their homes quickly. We then began to research keywords that were used by people trying to quickly sell homes in the Greater Los Angeles area. After looking into several hundred different keywords, they narrowed their list down to 25 keywords, and added localized phrases such as the names of the city, region, and so on to them. Finally, these keywords were added into the site as naturally as possible. Finally, we performed a minor revamp of their website based on general SEO tactics.

The Results and the Why

The result of their strategy was a 26% increase in their rankings for 19 of the 25 keywords they used after 30 days. When searching for 9 of those keywords, they were on page 1 of the search results. Localizing their keywords was one of the most important attributes of their plan, because it allowed them to find their market niche and become more visible to the clients within it. Osborne Homes thought like their clients; if you want to sell your distressed house in Los Angeles, you are likely to search for a buyer in Los Angeles. By being as specific as possible with their image, they became highly visible to the people who were looking for exactly that image, and establish themselves through major search engines.

Osborne Homes is just one of the many companies who have used proper onsite SEO to market their image and become very prominent to the people who searched for them online. Thinking like their clients and optimizing their website for them made them visible and relevant in the niche they wanted to be found in.