Many folks go right to their Internet Browser (Netscape or Explorer) and simply type in "www.BlackHills.com" and see what's there. When they find the info they're looking for, they don't even bother trying to search the major search engines and wading through the millions of possible links.
BlackHills.com gets a lot of traffic from folks that never even use a search engine to look us up! Simply because of the great domain names we have. Once they've made it to any one of our main sites, they are able to find places to go, events that are happening, things to see and places to stay.Others will do a search for "black hills", then maybe try more searches to help narrow their choices, like "black hills lodging".BlackHills.com and our other related sites have done very well with search engine placements over the last 5 years. We continue to update our websites and we continue to submit the information to the major search engines.The bottom line here is that if folks are searching for anything with the words "Black Hills", they will normally find us! And once they find us, they can find you too, if you're a member!
Search engines are businesses that make a living out of showing web pages. They show you ads to pay for your search. The more pages they make you look at, the higher their profit margin. So... the odds are against you ever being number one for an extended period of time.The most well know feature in western South Dakota is Mount Rushmore. Take the top ten search engines and do a search for mount rushmore and see what you come up with. If the search engines do what they claim they do, the following url should be number 1 consistently... The official Mount Rushmore site is "http://www.nps.gov/moru". Do the search once a week for 4 weeks... See where the official Mount Rushmore web site falls.
This is a one of a kind landmark that is fairly well known, with no other competition. Do you really think your business will be at number 1 consistently? Remember, every other simular business would like that top position too.