Funding a state versus funding a product requires different mindsets. In the first case, a state encompasses many facets—downtown, historical landmarks, museums, demographics, environmental initiatives, industrial areas, and many other issues that would interest visitors. In the second case, promoting a product requires a narrower focus. They introduce the product – how it’s made, how it benefits users’ and sellers’ payment options. As the sale of a product is more concentrated, the target group is defined and the sales goals are more clearly stated.
Government funding is a more complex activity, whether it applies to the public sector (municipalities) or the private sector (travel agencies or tour operators) or not.
State or product – different approaches, different results. However, both share a common thread. In order for any type of online promotion or advertising to work, search engine optimization must be the guiding principle.
SEO for New York State
Why is it important for New York based businesses and organizations to employ SEO strategies?
Reason: to attract the right audience so that website operators and owners can attract significant traffic. To attract significant traffic, the site must look professional, meet search engine requirements (look and feel), provide quality content, and encourage repeat visits or convert visits to point of sale.
For example, if the city government wants to promote the best places to visit in downtown Manhattan, their website needs to focus on the core of downtown by using keywords that people commonly use when searching for New York. The following items must therefore be labeled with relevant information (this is not an exhaustive list):
statue of Liberty
central park
United Nations
soho
Metropolitan Museum of New York
Cornell University, Vassar and NYU
Wall Street
New York subway
Chinatown
The counties (Brookly, Long Island, Bronx, etc.)
Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
And many other places a first-time visitor would be curious to see. You’ve heard the phrase “content is king” hundreds of times. An excellent SEO strategy for a website promoting New York would be to provide useful information covering not only tourism needs but also history, opening times and even reviews.
What do people want to know when planning a trip to the Big Apple? Hotels and restaurants obviously. An SEO expert would probably contact some big hotels and ask for reciprocal links.
Take a restaurant entrepreneur in Manhattan who is doing a brisk business. If he makes an average of about $50,000 a week from walk-in customers, imagine how much more his restaurant could make if he had a website that ranked well in the search engines. This means that every time a surfer enters “Restaurants in New York” or “Restaurants in Manhattan” into the search engine field, their restaurant will appear on the first two pages of, for example, Google or Yahoo. This is proof that their SEO provider knew which keywords to target and used a number of ways to attract traffic.
Besides the foot traffic to their physical locations, New York businesses could increase their business by also building an online presence based on good SEO practices.
The current economic crisis and tough competition make SEO indispensable. Business people aren’t the only ones who benefit. Here are some individuals/groups/organizations that could use SEO to their advantage:
investment broker
doctors
psychologists
antique collector
hobbyist
symphony orchestra
Student Loan Clubs
environmental lobbyists
restaurateurs
spa operator
massage clinics
fashion consultant
tour operator
insurance companies
real estate agent
Pet Supply Store
Chambers of Commerce
As you can see from the list, there is a New York SEO package for everyone!
