National Results when Searching

[DunckleyDesign]

I have a client that sells health and life insurance. It's a local office in a smaller town. When I do a google search only national results come up but when I tack on the city and state I get local results. I've done keyword research and narrowed the area down to the county. The search volume I get from just the keyphrase like "health insurance" lets say is an average of 70 per month but when I tack on city and state that number drops to 10 per month. What would be the best strategy for gaining traffic. It's not realistic to compete with national company like State Farm. Any Ideas?

[masonrj]

Hey,

I've ran across this situation many times.  Although the traffic volume is much lower for the location targeted keyword, that traffic will tend to be much more qualified.  Pumping traffic into the site will not do much good if it's not qualified traffic.

Also, while you probably can't beat State Farm in the national organic rankings, you can easily beat out the local agent in the local pack.

So it comes down to what your goal is - More traffic or improved rankings?( SEO or local SEO)  I tend to work for improved rankings.

Hope that helps

[MiriamEllis]

Hi James,

I agree with Richard on this - you want to aim for the traffic that is most relevant to your client. For a small business, ranking organically just for health insurance is likely to be out of the question, but ranking locally for health insurance in his small town should be achievable.