Maybe you have gotten this call or email already: "You have a great website but we think we can get you more traffic.” There is a lot of buzz around organic search ranking (the order in which your site shows up on the Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc. unpaid list). An actual innkeeper whose identity we will change, let’s call her Pam from Sonoma CA, recently explained to me that a Search Engine Optimization or SEO firm promised to put her bed and breakfast Website on the first page of Google and keep it there for a mere $700 per year. “Really”, I said, “what search terms do they plan to include?” “Well”, she said, “I’m not sure but I think it was ‘Sonoma bed and breakfast’".

Nobody's Home

Since I had just completed a large keyword study of her area, I knew that almost no one (only 18 people) searched in the past year for the keyword term “Sonoma bed and breakfast”. Many more were searching for related terms like “Sonoma County”, “California wine tasting”, “CA lodges” and even “wine country maps”. It would be pretty costly (several guest night stays worth) to optimize to the top of a list that almost no one will see.