Why the metro is hard
- Rivers and bridges split the area into parts people treat separately: the peninsula, Mount Pleasant across the Cooper, West Ashley, James and Johns Islands, North Charleston, and Summerville up I-26.
- Google weighs distance from the searcher for local results, so a Mount Pleasant business tends to show up strongly in Mount Pleasant and less across the river.
- Each part has its own business names and competitors, so you’re competing in several small markets at once.
What works
- A page for each area you really serve, saying something true about working there: the drive, the kind of homes or businesses, the jobs you’ve done. See town pages that rank.
- A service area on your Google profile covering those parts, if you go to customers.
- Reviews from each area that mention where the work was.
- A real second location only if it’s staffed. A virtual office across the bridge breaks Google’s rules.
- Local links from each area: a chamber, a sponsorship, a neighborhood partner.
Written by Nikita Huttenlocher, founder and lead engineer at Huttenlocher Technologies, a web design and software company in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.