How we ran an SEO project for a nail salon in the US market

If you are a company or business abroad that trusts Vietnam's online marketing technology and expertise, this is the article you should read right now. Website design company Mona Media has just completed a fairly challenging project in the US: SEO for a nail salon owned by Mr. Vu, a Vietnamese American who owns two large nail salons in Texas, Bnails Hereford and Bnails Amarillo. Let's look back at how we helped Bnails reach the top of Google search as quickly as possible.

A small corner of the Bnails website in Texas, USA

1. First success in SEO for a nail salon in the US market.

The nail industry is no stranger in Vietnam, but people have long called it simply doing fingernails and toenails, and there hasn't been major investment in it. In the US, however, the nail industry has supported most Vietnamese who settled there. After several decades of formation and growth, the US nail market has grown tremendously. Many Vietnamese people across states own their own nail salons and salon chains. One representative in Texas is our SEO customer, Mr. Vu, owner of two nail salons, one in Hereford and one in Amarillo, Texas.

This was a fairly difficult project: the customer was in the US and Mona Media in Vietnam, and communication was hard because of the large time difference. But with careful scheduling and many direct discussions with Mr. Vu about his needs and the US nail market with its direct competitors, our SEO team fully understood the work ahead, and the rest was getting down to it.

After many months of close work with Mr. Vu on every front, our SEO team completed the SEO project for the US nail salon in the best possible way, and the website Bnails.com of Mr. Vu overtook a long list of business competitors in his city and state.

2. Results of SEO for a nail salon in the US market

After a lot of calculation and research into the US market and user demand, these are the results the entire SEO team of website design company Mona Media achieved.

Bnails' location keywords reached very high positions on Google

Beyond location keywords such as Hereford and Amarillo, we also targeted Bnails' number one service keywords, proving Bnails' real quality to customers.

Nail service keywords also reached #1, the position every competitor's website dreams of.

So how did we pull off such results? What work went into such a difficult project? How do you take a website from zero to the top of search for hundreds of keywords? Let's walk through how we built this website from scratch.

Overall SEO is what we did for Bnails. More specifically, with SEO our customers get lasting value and direct access to with the group of customers who need their service.

Bnails is not the only one. So far we have done overall SEO for 250+ businesses, 95% of them consistently give positive reviews of our service and SEO price list reasonable pricing. Mona Media has brought 100+ keywords to #1 on Google and thousands of keywords to top positions.

And that's not all: the SEO service at Mona Media is always carried out carefully and by the book. We say NO to black hat SEO, SEO shortcuts and unofficial SEO tools, to avoid negative judgments from Google. 

Still, should you choose an agency or do SEO in-house? Find out more below. 

3. Keyword research process for an SEO project for a nail salon in the US market

Keyword research is simple and straightforward for an SEO project in the Vietnamese market. But this project came from a foreign market, and the US market is even harder, so many things had to be weighed carefully and accurately. Otherwise the SEO would target the wrong keywords, and even if those keywords reached the top, the customer's business wouldn't improve because there was no real demand.

3.1. The grammar problem

Grammar comes first. In a Vietnam project we easily know which keywords users search most, even ones that lack a subject and a predicate yet get very high search volume, simply because that is what customers need and that is exactly what they type.

But with English grammar, no matter how good our English is, we can't cover every word and phrase. Customers may search in broken English, and that happens a lot in the US market.

3.2. The vocabulary problem

Vocabulary comes next. English isn't our mother tongue, so there are many synonyms and easier search terms customers use that we can't know in advance. For example, "Nails Salon" may well be searched as "Nails shop". Such a person may be a potential customer because they only care about nail products, but they could become a real customer once they reach the website or the shop.

3.3. Phrases customers commonly search

The second special thing about SEO in the US market is the phrases customers search. We can't know which words or phrases customers in the US commonly search. It could be a long, complete sentence that nobody searches, or just a few words with sky-high search volume. For example, in Vietnam a customer looking for nail services might search "quality nail services in Ho Chi Minh City" or a short abbreviated phrase like "quality nails HCMC". The same holds in English: foreign customers phrase things in many different ways, and unless you live among them for long enough, it's hard to know such phrases exist.

3.4. Different geographic location

A big difference in geographic location also means a big difference in Google rankings. Sometimes a result differs by only a few positions, and sometimes by much more. For example, the same keyword may rank in the top 5 on Google in Vietnam but fall to 8th or 9th when searched in the US.

3.5. The solution to all of it

With so many obstacles, we worked out our own solutions to complete the project.
After taking on the project, the first thing we did was spend the first few days studying in depth the US nail market and Bnails' direct competitors. That took a good amount of time, because the nail market is no stranger in the US. It has been there for a long time and has grown very strong. In Vietnam, though, it is still fairly unfamiliar, and since this was our first nail project, and in the US market at that, early difficulties were hard to avoid.

Essential equipment of a nail salon

We worked day and night to keep communication between our SEO team and Mr. Vu uninterrupted. After our SEO staff drafted a keyword set specifically for the US nail market, we sent it to Mr. Vu to check whether the terms were really searched, and after many rounds of discussion we had a set of about 200 keywords. We didn't just prepare keywords for the overall project; we also created separate keywords for the Hereford and Amarillo branches, helping customers search more precisely.

We checked keywords continuously and periodically, then reported to Mr. Vu so he could re-check keyword rankings in the US. This work continued until the project was completed.

Take a look at our: Website SEO optimization guide to reach the top of Google

4. On-page optimization for an SEO-ready website

As mentioned at the start, this is a project of SEO for a nail salon in the US market, so this was also one of the biggest challenges of the project. The website itself had been built properly and was basically complete, but raising keyword rankings, as well as SEO-ready still required a lot of edits.

4.1. Rewriting all the site's titles and descriptions

Our SEO staff had to rewrite the entire SERP presentation of the website to make it SEO-ready and as click-worthy as possible, and poor articles were also removed. This was the biggest problem with the Bnails website: Mr. Vu had copied articles from his old website onto the new one, thinking that since they were his own articles, copying them over was perfectly fine. It wasn't. To Google, an article can exist only once, and copying it is not allowed even if you own both sites. We had to filter through all the articles and keep only 5, all newly written and free of Google duplicate-content issues.

4.2. Rebuilding the Location pages

We also had to rebuild Bnails' 2 Location pages, Hereford and Amarillo, because these are the 2 landing pages customers search for most. But we couldn't write the content for those pages ourselves, since there would surely be errors that would badly hurt Bnails' credibility. The solution was a partnership between Mr. Vu and our SEO team: we set the direction for each article, and Mr. Vu took on the most important part for us, writing the content for the necessary pages.

4.3. Completing the social channel system

At this point the basic preparation and website edits were done. But these basics alone weren't enough for Bnails to beat competitors in the same state of Texas and the same city. The social steps were rolled out, and together with Mr. Vu we planned what could be run for the customer, such as Halloween or Thanksgiving. These brought more traffic to Bnails, with noticeably more real customers coming through Facebook and Twitter, though keyword rankings improved fairly slowly.

4.4. Building the backlink system

Finally, we carried out the step of building A backlink system for the website, and things moved forward markedly. To date Bnails has about 30 main keywords holding top 5 positions, with many already at #1. That is a big success for an SEO service for a nail salon in the US market.

The elegant look of the nail salon

5. Project completion time

5.1. Time zone difference

The time zone difference was the top issue, requiring intense focus: when we were working in Vietnam, it was late at night in Texas. To speed up the SEO project for the US nail salon we worked very late so we could discuss the work with Mr. Vu directly and thoroughly.
Mr. Vu was a wonderful customer, ready to work with us in the project day or night. Whenever he could open his computer and work, he never turned us down.

5.2. Project duration

The total project time was about 4 to 5 months. Instead of jumping straight into the work, we spent a fair amount of time researching the project and the market and carefully evaluating the customer's website and competitors' websites, to choose the right direction and avoid SEO with the wrong purpose or wrong keywords, which would have to be redone and waste a lot of time.

After about a month of keyword research and on-page edits, the website was basically SEO-ready and free of anything that could drop its rankings or trigger a Google violation. Since this was an English-language website, Google's checks would be easy, so we edited with great care to finish the project properly.

5.3. When the project started to show results

The first results appeared after a bit more than 2 months, when many keywords began landing on the right homepage. That was an encouraging sign that what we were doing was right. At this stage we did one more thing: directing keywords to the right target pages, such as service and Location pages.

After that, the backlink system began pointing to the website and keyword rankings rose markedly. More than 40 keywords reached the top 10, many landed in the top 5, and hundreds of secondary keywords rose too as the site's authority grew.

6. Customer satisfaction with SEO services at Mona Media

Although this project was still very new for Mona Media, Mr. Vu, owner of 2 large nail salons in the US, trusted us and partnered with us on the project of SEO for a US website. Through the SEO project for the US nail salon, we gained a great deal of experience in SEO for overseas websites, priceless knowledge that no school can teach.

To date, the Bnails website alone has reached the top for about 40 industry keywords and hundreds of secondary keywords, clearly increasing Mr. Vu's revenue. He is extremely happy with the SEO service at Mona Media and promised to keep working with Mona Media on future projects.

Since Mr. Vu's Bnails project, we have received several inquiries from overseas customers about SEO services and we are still advising them carefully on what they will achieve with the SEO service at Mona Media. They are very happy with how our staff and advisors serve them.

We haven't only satisfied overseas customers. After 8+ years of expanding into SEO, we have successfully done SEO for over 300+ businesses, with hundreds of keywords reaching #1 and thousands in the top positions.

Besides the full-scope SEOpackage, we also offer customers an SEO Local service. With local SEO, your website and articles are prioritized in your customers' search area.

At Mona Media, we have a team of SEO experts with experience and seniority, helping customers gain lasting SEO value despite constant changes in Google's algorithms.

100% of customers who used our SEO service gave positive feedback about Mona Media.

See how a photocopier rental company did SEO by clicking the button below. 

Please contact us via:

• Hotline: 1900 636 648
  
• Email: info@mona-media.com
  
• Address: 1073/23 Cach Mang Thang Tam, Tan Son Nhat Ward, Ho Chi Minh City