Sometimes it can be hard to choose the right terms for Google. There have been a lot of changes in search behavior and search guidelines in the last few years, and they’re constantly evolving. So, you’ve got to understand how to research and use keywords in the current environment which will help you rank for the right search terms on your pet business website. And this is exactly what we are tackling today!
On this episode, Bella sits down with Erika Godwin. Erika Godwin is the Co-Founder and the Chief Marketing Officer of ProPet Software, a boarding kennel, dog daycare and pet grooming management software. She is also an expert on website creation, maintenance, and SEO.
Biggest Takeaways You Don’t Want To Miss:
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What you need to know about how local searches work [3:00]
- What’s the point of ranking #1 for a search term if it’s not what your potential customers are searching for? Google and most other search engines use three facto help generate their search results.
- Relevance: How close your business matches to the search terms
- Distance: If location is added to a search term, Google will calculate based on their location
- Prominence: How well known is the business? This is based on information Google collects from across the web from data such as Links, Articles, Directories, Google Review Count + Score.
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What is a site crawler and how does it pertain to search terms? [6:00]
- Site Crawling and Sitemaps (A web crawler (also known as a web spider or web robot) is a program or automated script which browses the World Wide Web in a methodical, automated manner. This process is called Web crawling or spidering. Many legitimate sites, in particular, search engines, use spidering as a means of providing up-to-date data).
- How does this help you? How often do you need to update your sitemap? – The most important thing is to let Google know when you have a new website. Use the internal link and fresh content, such as blogs, to help get more crawling on your site, but you don’t have to update every day. Link old blogs to new blogs, it helps Google crawl your site for search terms. Then Google will more easily find your site when people in your area search for that.
- Make sure Google knows your location and services you offer:
- Google Business and Google+: Based on the searchers’ location, Google will serve them results based on relevancy. So if you search ‘pet sitter near me’ and you live in Dallas – it won’t show you pet sitters in Seattle.
- Local Pack + Localized Organic [20:00]: All different things that will show up on your search engine. You want to find the biggest proximity signals, the links below will help you learn the difference between the two and how to utilize them. Don’t look spammy or overuse keywords. Make sure the keyword is used naturally no matter what. You want a natural flow.
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What are the different types of keywords and how do I use them? [10:00]
- 1) Head Keywords – basic / big search vol but competitive and may not be worth it
- 2) Body Keywords – go after more, more descriptive, not searched as often and less comp
- 3) Long Tail Keywords – a lot of people search for them. A long question like keywords ranks higher. “Should I…” questions are blowing up the internet now.
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Should I Pay For More Than One Keyword? [14:45]
- One keyword is a better focus, but make it a general topic. Google often bridges the gap for the other keywords, your website is probably just wanting to optimize the one keyword that is the most important.
- So, how do know what our customers are searching for? It will fluctuate every day, there are too many factors to know exactly, but there are tools to use that help us.
- Use a tool for search volume research SE Ranking tools (links below) for keywords you think your client base may be interested in.
- Find top 5 competitors and plug them into a software for ranking to find out more about how they are doing with their keywords. Stalk your competitors!
- Don’t blindly blog! With this knowledge, you’ll be able to write blogs that get down to the level of your clients and what they are looking for.
- Utilize your keywords with your images too! Google image searches are on the rise. Make sure you name your photo offline (in your documents), then describe the image, use ALT text, location, services featured, etc. Anything your website will let you add to the image to describe it, use it to help populate that image in a search.
Links & Resources
Local Search Ranking Factors: https://moz.com/local-search-ranking-factors
Keyword Suggestion tools: https://seranking.com/keyword-suggestion-tool.html – https://keywordtool.io/
Competitor Research: https://online.seranking.com/research.html https://www.spyfu.com/
Moz Local SEO – https://moz.com/learn/seo/local
Local Link Building – https://moz.com/learn/seo/local-outreach-and-link-building-video
WordPress Plugin – https://yoast.com/
Premium Local SEO Plugin – https://yoast.com/wordpress/plugins/local-seo/ $69 per year
Find Erika at: http://goo.gl/ahGBGZ
Transcript:
Bella: Hey, hey, hey, this is episode 105 of Bella In Your Business. The next series of episodes are from a previously recorded live event training series that Erica Goodwin and I did together. The following is a past recording, but the information is just as juicy. I hope you enjoy it. Welcome to Bella In Your Business, where Bella will discuss anything and everything about your pet sitting business to help you land on target. So get ready—Bella’s got your chute. Let’s jump.
You guys, we are doing this first training together and I am so excited to bring this to you. Like I said earlier, we are actually broadcasting live on Instagram on the Barketing Blog channel. What we’re doing is Erica and I are coming together for the very first time on this kind of live thing and we are so excited because what we’re going be doing is giving you training for the next twelve weeks. And it’s going to be really amazing. We are going to be bringing to you the topic today, which is ranking with Google, basically, because what Erica found out as she’s doing all of these websites is that we’re doing the wrong search terms. Before we get into it, Erica, why don’t you explain to everyone who you are and where you’re located?
Erica: My name is Erica. For those of you that don’t know, I am in the capital of Canada up here in Ottawa, where it’s nice and chilly on this first day of spring. My background in the pet industry comes from the software side. I’m a co-founder of ProPet Software, which is a kennel management software. From there, I met Bella and got into websites and business and kind of tackle it from both sides now with Barketing Solutions. So that’s who I am and my background.
Bella: That’s awesome. Yes, Erica is very talented, you guys. If you’re not following her on Instagram, go to Barketing Blog. If you are, that’s awesome. Just get her on your feed because I learn from her every single day. She’s amazing. As well as if you’re looking for websites, that’s awesome. What I do is I’ve been in the industry for eleven years now. Good gracious. I started in 2007, and what I do is I help pet sitting and dog walking businesses mainly expand their businesses. So they’ve already started and they’re looking to bring on employees and get bigger. And that’s what I spend my days doing. I don’t work a day in my life because it’s so much fun, and I get to do cool things like this with you all.
So today’s topic is basically how to figure out the keywords on your website, because a lot of us are doing this incorrectly, myself included. We thought that we would kick off this training series with this particular one because it’s so super important. A lot of us are spinning our wheels, and unless we truly understand the magnitude that this could help or hurt us, then we’re really just wasting our time. And none of us want to waste our time, right? So, Erica, I want you to take it away here. I want to understand first, like how does the search local work? Because all of us pet businesses are all local searches. So all this stuff we learn about these national searches don’t apply. So talk to us about local searches.
Erica: The way that Google works is they have three different factors that they look for in local search. The first one is relevance. That is how relevant your website is to the search terms that the person’s looking for. The other one is distance—what kind of proximity you are from the person that’s searching. So if they just search “pet sitter,” then Google will use their IP address and determine where they’re located, and then find results based on that. So it’s important to make sure that your location is everywhere and that you have your Google My Business set up. You should have a Google Map on your website. You can go into Google Maps and they have a feature where you can embed a map of your location. If any of my website clients are here, if you do that, send me the snippet and we’ll get that on your website. That also helps with local search. And then prominence—how prominent is your business? Some that are more prominent offline, Google tries to find them to get that in front of you.
Bella: The links that you’re getting, articles to blogs—so if you get a newspaper article in your local city, anything valuable that links to your website, that all bumps you up in the search engines. It’s all about local. And another thing is reviews, your review counts, and the review score that you have. The more reviews you have with the better rating, that all helps. So there are so many factors. It’s ridiculous. And there’s the local pack—that’s the top three listings under the map when you search local. Those have different ranking factors than the organic search below it.
So you’re telling me that the map—the people that show up on the map—those results are different than the organic?
Erica: Slightly. They have different ranking factors with different weights on them.
Bella: This is so important for local businesses because we’re not trying to rank nationally, just in our area. Our pool of competition is much smaller, especially in the pet field where a lot of people aren’t paying attention to this. You just have to be a little bit awesome in this to make such a big impact.
You also mentioned maps, Erica. Where would you, as a web designer, put that map? Would you create a link in the nav bar and put it there, or would you put it in the footer?
Erica: On some of the websites we do, we put it at the bottom of the homepage near the contact information, and also on your contact page.
Bella: Maureen, you’re already at the top of the local pack, so you’re doing good. Maureen’s a rock star. She’s the first one for most of the keywords that I’ve looked up for her.
So Maureen is one of your clients and you’ve already looked up these keywords for her. From an outside perspective, and I’m not trying to sell you at all, but I just want to say there are very few business owners out there who are proactive for their clients. That’s so cool that you already do that.
All right, so talk to me about site crawling and sitemaps. What is this like, a spider crawling a web? How does that pertain to local searches?
Erica: Google has their crawlers searching websites every day. If you’re a smaller website, they might not find you as easily. It’s important that once you make major changes on your website, you submit your XML sitemap to Google to remind it that you’ve got new information. Then Google crawls and stores it so when someone searches, it can ping back to your site. But before you aim for a keyword, make sure people are actually searching for it. We learned this when we were growing ProPet Software—we wasted time ranking for a keyword nobody searched.
Bella: So how often do we have to do that?
Erica: You don’t need to do it regularly. The most important thing is to do it when you launch a new site. After that, Google will keep crawling it. The more that you update your website—posting blogs, linking internally—that helps Google crawl. For example, when you post a new blog, link it to an older blog, and then edit an old blog to link back to the new one. That creates an internal network. When you link, use your keywords so Google connects the terms to your pages.
Bella: Google is so smart. It’s crazy. So tell me about how this intertwines with Google Plus and Google My Business.
Erica: If you want to rank in Google, use their tools. Your “NAP”—name, address, phone number—should be consistent everywhere. Even though Google Plus isn’t as popular, posting blogs there can still help you get noticed.
Bella: That’s a great reminder because I used to do that and stopped. So, local pack versus organic—what’s the difference?
Erica: The local pack is what shows up in the map results—it’s heavily based on proximity. The organic results rely more on link signals and authority. Don’t overload your site with spammy backlinks or keyword stuffing, though—that’ll hurt you. Google’s smart enough to recognize natural writing now.
Bella: That’s good to remember. So what are the different types of keywords?
Erica: There are three. Head keywords are short, broad, and competitive, like “pet sitter.” Body keywords are a bit longer, like “pet sitter Austin Texas”—they’re more specific and less competitive. Then there are long-tail keywords—these are phrases or questions people actually type, like “should I walk my dog every day?” Each one is searched less often individually but can be easier to rank for.
Bella: Oh wow, and with voice search now, people are saying things like “pet sitter near me.” That’s huge.
Erica: Exactly. Some of my clients optimize for that and track results. What works in one city might not work in another, so always research locally.
Bella: Chloe asked—some website hosts only allow one keyword while others allow multiple. Is one keyword per page better?
Erica: One keyword per page is best. Think of it as one topic per page. Google’s moving away from fixed keywords—it’s about topics now. You can rank for multiple terms naturally, but focus each page on one clear theme.
Bella: Got it. So, how do we know what our customers are actually searching for?
Erica: Sit down and brainstorm all the words people might use. Then use tools like SE Ranking or SEMrush to check search volume and competitiveness. You can even plug in your competitors’ URLs and see which keywords they rank for. Then focus your content around those that bring results.
Bella: That’s so powerful, especially for businesses serving multiple cities.
Erica: Yes, and if you serve multiple areas, make sure Google knows that. You can write blogs about dog parks, vets, or trails in specific towns. It helps Google associate you with those locations.
Bella: This has been so good. You’ve taught us a lot today.
Erica: My pleasure!
Bella: Brooke asked—does Erica offer a website service?
Erica: Yes. Go to Barketing.co. We offer template-based websites with hosting and support so you don’t have to worry about anything.
Bella: I can vouch for that. Many of my clients use her and love it.
As we wrap up, next week I’ll be taking over to talk about how to attract tens of thousands of dollars into your business on a shoestring budget—strategies I give my Better Marketing with Bella clients.
Thank you all so much for joining us. If things don’t go perfect when you go live, it’s okay—just keep going. It’s real, and people connect with that.
Thanks for joining the Jump into Marketing Training. We’ll see you next week.
Thanks for jumping with Bella in Your Business. For more information, free articles, and coaching sessions, go to jumpconsulting.net.