Serving Vancouver remotely
SEO and digital marketing for Vancouver businesses
SEO and digital marketing for Vancouver businesses where every dollar has to pay back, from Burnaby and Richmond to Surrey.
Local businesses
Property, film, tech and wellness
Property is the city's defining industry. Home sales, development, mortgage broking, property management and the trades around them make up a huge share of local marketing spend, and it's the most crowded ad category in the city.
Film, TV and visual effects production here is one of the biggest centres in North America, supporting a large freelance and studio workforce and many specialist suppliers who market to production companies.
Tech is split between local companies and the engineering offices of large American firms. The local companies lean toward software with buyers abroad, so most of their search plan has nothing to do with Vancouver.
Tourism and hospitality run on cruise season, conventions and the ski and outdoor economy up the Sea-to-Sky corridor, so restaurants, tour operators and hotels see demand swing hard.
Health, wellness, cosmetic and fitness businesses are unusually dense per head. They compete almost entirely on distance, reviews and presentation in the map results.
How people search
Bridges, town names and second-language search
How do people in Vancouver look for a business like yours? The answer changes what we fix first.
- People name their town. Searches mention Burnaby, Richmond, Surrey, Coquitlam, Langley, New Westminster or North Vancouver far more often than "Vancouver", and each acts as its own local market.
- Water and bridges throw off distance. Google ranks on distance, not travel time, so a business across the inlet or the river can look close and be no use to the searcher. Reviews and relevance matter more here than in a grid city.
- Traditional and simplified Chinese searches in Richmond and Vancouver, and Punjabi searches in Surrey and Delta, carry good volume and meet very little good competition.
- Sites other than Google matter more here than in most of Canada. For part of the Chinese-speaking audience, social apps and review platforms used across the Pacific are a main research tool for restaurants, clinics and services.
- Kitsilano, Mount Pleasant, Gastown, Yaletown, Commercial Drive and the West End all work as search terms and as catchment areas of their own.
Two searchers, one service
Some of your customers are searching from another country
Trade, travel and family ties across the Pacific mean people research property, education, tourism and professional services here from abroad. Some of that research never happens on Google.
Searching from Metro Vancouver
- Burnaby, Richmond, Surrey or Langley in the search
- Distance to the searcher, bridges and all
- English or Punjabi, depending where they live
Searching from across the Pacific
- Traditional or simplified Chinese
- Social and review apps used across the ocean
- A decision often made before anyone lands
The market
High costs, many town centres and a Pacific link
Vancouver's costs shape the whole marketing plan. High rent, high wages and scarce commercial space mean thin margins and little patience for slow channels. Every programme has to show from the start how it'll make money.
The metro has many centres. Surrey is huge and growing, Burnaby has a big tech and industrial base, and Richmond is a separate market with its own language mix. Downtown isn't the centre of gravity for most businesses.
Port trade, visitors and long family and business ties across Asia mean some customers for property, education, tourism and professional services search from another country.
There's little land between the mountains, the ocean and the US border, so businesses of the same type cluster in a few corridors. Local search is unusually crowded for the size of the population.
The rules
Advertising rules that apply
- BC's Personal Information Protection Act sets how organisations here handle personal information, and the provincial commissioner is the regulator. Build consent and data handling against the provincial rules. Federally regulated businesses and cross-border data still involve PIPEDA.
- Several of Vancouver's biggest marketing categories have professional advertising rules. Real estate licensees, mortgage brokers and regulated health professionals follow rules on disclosure, testimonials and how outcomes may be described, in social posts and paid ads as well as websites.
- Marketing in a second language is held to the same standard as English, so Chinese and Punjabi campaigns need the same legal review. We flag these points but don't give legal advice.
Sources
Official sources for these rules
These are the laws and regulators behind the rules above. Check the source before you act. This page isn’t legal advice.
- The provincial regulator for PIPA, in place of the federal commissioner
- OIPC BC
- Source: Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner for BC
- The federal private-sector privacy law that applies where no provincial statute takes its place
- PIPEDA
- Source: Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Good fit
Where the easy wins are
Industries we help
- Residential Real Estate marketingBe the agent homeowners in your area already know when they decide to sell. Then the appraisal feels like a chat with someone they trust.
- Mortgage Brokers marketingMore funded deals from the demand your market has this quarter, with purchase and refinance handled separately and results measured to funding.
- Cosmetic Dentistry marketingWin the consultation from a self-paying patient who’s been researching for months. Then help that consultation turn into treatment, because that’s where you win or lose.
Where to start
Where to start online
Local SEO
Our local SEO services get you onto Google Maps and into "near me" searches. We fix your Business Profile, area pages and reviews, for one location or forty.
SEO services
Phone not ringing while competitors show up above you? Our SEO services fix your site, write the pages buyers search for and show you every call and form it brings in.
Reputation & reviews
Online review management that gets you more real reviews without breaking platform rules. We build the asking into your routine and reply properly to criticism.
Landing page design
Landing page design for paid campaigns starts with message match: each page repeats what the ad promised and asks for one action. Everything else supports that or goes.
Working with us
How the day-to-day works
Calls run over video in Pacific Time. Your profiles, site and ad campaigns stay in your own accounts.
Our fees don't carry the cost of a Vancouver office. That's not a discount claim; it means more of your fee pays for search, content and ads.
We hire native writers for Chinese or Punjabi content on each project and show that cost in the quote. Photos or filming across the metro are booked locally and quoted separately.
Questions
Common questions from Vancouver businesses
Why do we disappear from results across the bridge in North Vancouver or Surrey?
Local results depend on where the searcher is, and Metro Vancouver's water and few crossings sit between areas that look next to each other on a map.
Adding town names to page titles won't fix it. Write content that shows you serve the area, collect reviews from customers there and, if your business supports it, open a second location.
Is publishing in Chinese or Punjabi worth the effort?
For many consumer and professional services here, yes. People search in these languages, and what ranks for those searches is often poor.
You must be able to serve the enquiry in that language. Mandarin content that leads to an English-only intake converts badly and hurts trust, so decide how you'll serve these customers first.
How do we make the numbers work in such an expensive market?
Be stricter about what a lead is worth and where it comes from. Vancouver costs mean people look harder at payback here than almost anywhere in Canada.
That usually shifts the mix toward channels you own: ranking for searches from people ready to buy, a strong review position, and landing pages that turn enough visitors into customers to cover the clicks.
Our demand is seasonal because of tourism. What should we do off season?
Build. The quiet months are for technical fixes, content, photos and asking for reviews, which are harder to do in the peak.
Then move spend ahead of the season, because people research and book well before they arrive.
Do you have a Vancouver office?
No. We have no office, address or staff in Vancouver. We work with businesses here over video calls in Pacific Time.
If meeting in person matters to you, a local agency is the better fit. Being remote makes no difference to your search results.
Losing customers to competitors?
Start with the free checkup. It shows what to fix first on your website, with no sign-up. Want to know who wins the searches that matter in Vancouver? Book a call with our specialists.
Prefer to talk it over? Book a free call
Your BOOSTD score improves within 90 days, or your next month is free. After 6 months, more traffic or leads, or we keep working free (up to 6 free months in any 12 months). Read our guarantee
References
Sources for vancouver SEO
The official documents and research this page is based on. Platform rules change, so check the source before you act on a detail.
Related
More on marketing in Vancouver
Last updated · Published by Zubair Afzal, responsible editor