SEO services for Mount Pleasant firms, practices and waterfront contractors

Who hires in Mount Pleasant, and how they look

The Census Bureau's American Community Survey shows a town that leans toward desk work. About 16% of working residents are in professional, scientific and technical services, the largest single group, and close to a quarter of workers work from home.

That points to two kinds of business, and each gets found its own way.

The first sells expertise: the CPA with a home office, the engineer who left a big firm to consult, the two-person marketing shop. Their clients rarely pick them from a map pin. A prospect types the problem ("fractional CFO Mount Pleasant", "commercial architect Charleston SC"), reads one page closely, then looks up the people behind it. A page per service that answers one problem in clear terms does more here than a single "Services" page with six bullet points.

The second sells to households: dentists, physical therapists, tutors, remodelers, lawn crews, dock and pool contractors. Their customers compare three or four names on a phone. Someone searching "dentist Mount Pleasant" or "dock repair near me" decides on the map, by stars, recent reviews, photos and whether the hours look right.

Many customers write "Mt Pleasant". Keep "Mount Pleasant" in your own titles and listings, and let the short form stand where customers use it.

SEO services for Mount Pleasant firms, practices and contractors

What we would set up depends on which side of that split you sit:

• A service-area profile for home-based firms. A consultant or contractor working from home can hide the street address on the Business Profile and still show for nearby searches, with Mount Pleasant, Charleston and the other places served listed as areas.
• A primary category that matches the work you most want, checked against the categories your nearest competitors chose.
• One page per service problem, written for the fields the Town of Mount Pleasant's business page says it wants to grow: information technology, life science, architecture and engineering, marketing and publishing, and finance and investments.
• Listing cleanup so your name, your number and the spelling of Mount Pleasant match on every directory.
• A review routine for practices and contractors: one request after every visit or job, to every customer, never only the happy ones.
• Waterfront details for Shem Creek restaurants and charter docks: the creek named in the title and the profile, current photos, and special hours or a temporary closure when a storm comes through.
• Guest posts, Web 2.0 pages and second-tier amplification links aimed at your service pages, each one listed by its live address when the month closes.

East of the Cooper: the bridge, Shem Creek and the Old Village

Mount Pleasant sits across the Cooper River from the Charleston peninsula, joined to it by the Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge on US 17. I-526 runs out of town toward North Charleston. Residents give directions by Shem Creek, the Old Village and US 17, and those names belong on your pages where they are true for you. A roofer who covers the whole town gains nothing from a list of neighborhood names; a seafood restaurant on the creek should say so in its title.

The town's history runs along that shoreline. Its waterfront became the center of a shrimping industry in the early 20th century, and the core of the Old Village is a recognized historic district. An inn, gallery or tour that sells that history to visitors should name the Old Village or Shem Creek on its profile and its pages, in the words a visitor would type.

The short hop over the river shapes local search here. A homeowner near Shem Creek who looks for a kitchen remodeler can be shown firms from the peninsula, West Ashley or Daniel Island. Distance is one of the factors Google's help pages list for local results, and a firm across the bridge is close enough to compete on it. Claiming a Charleston address you don't have won't help. Being the best-reviewed, most relevant answer on your side of the river can.

If you take work on the other side, those markets have pages of their own. Our Charleston page covers the city and its islands. North Charleston is up I-526, around the plants and the port, and Summerville is farther out along I-26.

A 90-day plan for a Mount Pleasant dock builder

Say you build and repair docks and boat lifts for homes on the creeks and marsh around town. Market Town ($125 a month, 10 keywords) fits a single-trade business like that, with room for the main services and the places you work most.

1. Month one goes to the profile and the directories. The primary category is set for dock building, the service areas list Mount Pleasant and the nearby places you reach, finished docks go up as photos, and the address is hidden if customers never visit you. The same name, number and town spelling go onto every directory, and duplicates are merged. A review request goes to each customer whose job wrapped up this year.
2. Month two is pages. New docks, dock repair and boat lifts each get one, written around the questions owners ask before they hire: how long the job takes, what happens after a storm, who handles permits. The first outreach articles and Web 2.0 posts appear on other sites, aimed at those pages, with amplification links behind them.
3. Month three brings the first monthly report: each link's live URL, the page it targets and its anchor text, plus the pages published and the reviews that came in. The next keywords come from what the first two months showed.

Results on terms Charleston firms also want take months, and the pace depends on how established those firms are. With storm season stretching from June 1 to November 30, winter is a good time to get the pages up.