By Michael Dorausch, D.C.
Do you know the way to San Jose? According to this sign, which I took a picture of while walking along Hegenberger Rd in Oakland, Interstate 880 South is the way to San Jose. Looks like somebody tried to clean off graffiti from the sign. The soft flash on my digital camera really brought it out.
When I travel I like think about how I would go about finding products and services in the area I’m visiting. In this case, I was in Oakland, and I was taking a stroll between the Courtyard Marriott Hotel and McAfee Coliseum. I didn’t do any searches while I was in the neighborhood, but I thought that if I was seeking out a chiropractor I may search for something like “chiropractor Oakland Airport” or “chiropractor Hegenberger Oakland” rather than just “chiropractor Oakland.”
The area I was in was rather industrial and I’m not sure if there are any chiropractors in the neighborhood. There is a new Wal-Mart not far from the stadium, but most of the other local properties were related to industrial businesses, banking, along with a scattering of fast food restaurants. (I did it at a sushi restaurant at 296 Hegenberger which was really good, place was called Yoshino Sushi)
Over the weekend, I noticed some businesses advertising terms such as East Bay, Bay area, and Bay region. I also saw a local Chevy commercial that used the terminology “NorCal” in their advertisements. People building locally targeted web sites can learn from paying attention to what type of terminology is popular in local areas. Applied to chiropractic, someone could advertise their office as a “Bay area chiropractic center” on one page, and a “San Francisco chiropractic Center”on another. They may even want to consider terminology such as “NorCal” if it were appropriate. Someone like Michael Moore in Redding California could use advertising that included… “serving NorCal residents since 1965.”
And don’t forget airport codes. If your business is located close to an airport you may want to include airport codes somewhere in your content. For example the airport code for Oakland airport is OAK while the airport code for San Francisco international Airport is SFO.