I'm Stumped! Major keyword remains out my grasp!

[nielloac]

I am the ONLY Acura dealer in the city of Sacramento yet my competitor,continually ranks higher than me on Google for many keywords. I smoke him on Yahoo though. Any thoughts? I have used the Ranks website and the Google Rankings website to optimize the site to no avail. I'm going nuts!

[nielloac]

My competitor has their heading at the top of his website which includes the keywords. I suspect that might play a large role. My designer is reluctant to follow suit as he feels it will jeapardize the look and feel of the site. He has recently hidden a <h1> header but I don't want to jeapardize our rank. Is their a way to make the content of my logo in the middle of the page visible to the web crawlers?

[WebFreedom]

I noticed that your competitor has the word 'Sacramento' in the alt text of his logo, and it is not included in the alt text of your logo. Based on the keywords you're trying to optimize for, it may help to add this word to the alt text of your logo.

Other than that, your best bet is to follow fundamental SEO - have your keywords appear as close to the beginning (top left) of the page as possible, at least once in the body of the page, and as close to the end (bottom right) of the page as possible. Creative design should be able to accomplish this, and without moving your logo. And your designer has a point - from a human's perspective, your site is better looking than your competitor's.

HTH,
Sam

[nielloac]

Thank you for the look. I passed your comments on to our designer as he always loves to hear good feedback. We will be implementing your suggestion ASAP. I anyone else has any other ideas, I would love to hear them. Thanks again!