Old School Facelift #9 Laser Works by Carolyn Monday from Hackettstown New Jersey

I was at a birthday party Saturday night and I ran into Carolyn Monday who owns a company on Schooly's Mountain in Hackettstown, NJ called Laser Works Treatment Center.  The company uses laser therapy to treat smoking habits and since I've never smoked a legitimate cigarette in my life (more on that below) I really wasn't interested in whether it works or not.  I was more interested in whether Carolyn should have her own static website or not to promote her services.  So, let's take a look at:

Old School Facelift #9 - Laser Works Treatment Center by Carolyn Monday

1. Natural Search Dilemma - Carolyn needs to start here.  She needs to figure out which 10 keywords she'd like to appear on.  Searching for laser works, hackettstown NJ pulls up her nice Google Local listing but that type of search predisposes that people are already looking for her.  "quit smoking laser nj" brings up quite a lot of listings but it doesn't appear that any of the top 20 results have a strategic advantage.  Unfortunately her own name doesn't bring up any results (until this post).  When I browse the list of results none of them appear to be blogs which means Carolyn could have some nice natural search results by constantly updating the site.
2. Getting a Good URL - Going back to the natural search results there appears to mostly static websites and unfortunately for Carolyn laserworks.com seems to be taken as well as laserworksinc.com.  Laserworkstreatmentcenter.com is a long URL but is available as is carolynmonday.com and carolynmondaylaser.com.  stopsmokingbylaser.com also works.  Personally I'd grabbed quite a few of them, but depending on how Carolyn wants to market her company would mean I'd either go carolynmonday.com or some version of stopsmokingbylaser.com.  Me, I'd go stopsmokingbylaser.com because I bet people that are hearing radio ads or reading articles are probably more likely to type that keyword in.  If you Google "stop smoking by laser" you'll see that nobody is using that URL and it seems extremely popular with the paid search advertisers.
3. Blog Content of StopSmokingbyLaser.com - I'd avoid the typical static website and opt for the blog site.  Revisiting my old board of education campaign site which now points to longvalleymath.com you can see how you can have a combination site with static pages but one that is powered by a blog.  So, I'd recommend wordpress as the blog platform because it is a) free b) easy c) has many different templates to choose from and d) has easy to use add-ons.  As I recall for about $15 she can purchase her URL via wordpress and have a blog site up in running in a manner of minutes.  Plus, the blog content will enable her to update her site a few times a week, hit the blogosphere running where there doesn't appear to be any competition, and make some headway in the natural search. 
4. Video Content - Ok, now I'm not writing that her product doesn't work or it isn't believable.  It does seem a little far out, but then again I've never smoked.  The best thing Carolyn can do to prove it works is to use video.  So, I'd hop over to YouTube and grab the page YouTube.com/stopsmokingbylaser.  Now she has a page that will host her own video (read commercials) for free.  All she needs to do is have a decent video with a tripod and some free, easy to use video editing software (or not) and she can film her office, materials, procedures, and even do a video series.  Wordpress also makes it very easy to host the video on the blog.
5. Customer Testimonials -  Does anyone every believe the infamous "this product is great by John from Kalamazoo, MI" quote?  Of course not, but if Carolyn actually filmed satisfied customers and put it up on her YouTube page, how much more powerful would that be?

You'll notice one thing missing that has been consistent in most of my Old School posts is I never mentioned paid search.  My experience tells me that the majority of her keywords would be very expensive judging by the competition that is already there.  I think Carolyn should eventually use paid search instead of say a newspaper ad, but she'd have to be very smart about how much she pays and which words she buys.  First priority for her business is to take care of the free, social networking opportunities and then branch out into paid advertising. 

BTW - I made this post at 9:01 AM and the keyword search {"carolyn monday", hackettstown, nj} had no search results.  By 9:45 this post appeared in the results proving how quick Google is and how quickly a blog post can influence results.   Also, this post is #1 in the "Carolyn Monday" keyword.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

P.S.  I never smoked cigarettes because when I was growing up my father smoked a ton of Parliment cigarettes especially in the little Toyota he owned.  I can still smell that smoke blowing around that car and that pretty much ruined any chance I had to ever pick up a cigarette and put it in my mouth.  Plus, if you actually lit up a Parliment around me I'll actually ask you to put it out or go somewhere else.  Yes - any other cigarette but those vile Parliments.