SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It's marketing your website to the search engines. The search engines determine which webpages show up in the search results based on a complex algorithm. Elements of the algorithm are already known to marketers and this is what we base our marketing around. SEO marketing for small business is an important part of today's marketing mix, however, as consumers continue to adopt the internet as their primary source for research, SEO marketing will soon become a crucial part of the mix for all businesses, in every industry.
Like many business owners, you may already be aware of the need to implement SEO marketing and may have already started, or maybe you're asking:
Why SEO will help your business
The internet has changed peoples buying behavior. Each day more and more people turn to the internet to do their research, to gather information and to make a purchase.
You may believe your industry, clients/prospects aren't using the internet or social media today, therefore there is no need for you to jump into SEO right now. You can justify this by saying old systems are still working, you don't have the time, you don't have the money. But are you looking to the future, where will your industry be in 12 months from now?
Implementing SEO today will provide your business with a competitive advantage to ensure a successful, viable business in tomorrow's competitive marketplace!
Here are a few things about how SEO works and the competitive advantage you will have by starting sooner rather than later with implementing SEO into your marketing mix.
Implementing an effective Inbound Marketing Strategic Plan to achieve high organic rankings and establishing your reputation as a credible industry thought leader online takes time. It takes time from you on a daily and/or weekly basis to be working on it, and it takes time to see the results, the recommendation is 3-6 months before you see some financial benefit.
When your prospects are searching for your product or service do they find you or your competitors?
So lets say in 6 months time, your industry starts to move towards the internet for marketing and therefore your prospects start to use it more for their research and buying. Who will they find? Will it be you or your competitor? If it takes 3-6 months to achieve high organic google rankings that means you need to start now, the sooner the better. Make sure you have the competitive advantage by having the foresight to jump ahead of the game and make your presence on the internet, so when your prospects start looking its you they find. Not your competition!
How SEO will help your business:
1. Boost your rankings in organic search engines
2. Drive better qualified traffic to your site
3. Help your prospects find you when they are looking
The first step in SEO is to understand what words (keywords) your prospects are using when searching for the product/service you offer. The second step is to build a lot of content around these keywords. The third step is to generate as many inbound links as possible to your website using the relevant keywords.
Optimizing your online content, with your keywords, is not only relevant for your website. It is also important to optimize all the content you publish online including blogs, PR and inbound links.
It is important in today's business world that business owners and marketing managers understand the value of SEO as a key marketing strategy.
Consumers today are turning to the internet to do their product research before buying. And in many cases actually make their transaction online. Some industries are adopting the internet faster than others, but don't be fooled it is just a matter of time before your prospects will be using the internet as their main source of information for research and buying.
So with that in mind, doesn't it make sense to be where your customers are looking for your product or service? Doesn't it make sense to be able to be found when they are looking for your product or service?
This is where SEO comes in. No matter what you believe about your industry and consumer behavior, tomorrow's consumer, your prospects will be looking for you on the internet and you need to be there to be found. The sooner you have a presence on the internet the better. Time is a key factor to achieving high search engine rankings.
80% of searchers will choose a link to an organic ranking rather than a paid ranking. Although it may be quicker to pay for an advertisement to be at the top of the rankings this is a short term strategy that opens the door to your competition achieving the top organic rankings and getting 80% of the traffic, leaving you with the 20%. There are definitely benefits to using paid advertisements online and its definitely a strategy that should be considered with clear goals in mind. However, it is paramount to focus on organic rankings as a marketing goal whether you implement paid advertisements or not. To obtain the top organic rankings for your keywords takes time, it may take up to 6 months before you really see any results. However, the upside is that its also just as time consuming for your competition, so getting started on SEO for organic rankings today will be your competitive advantage tomorrow.
Like many marketers will say, it's a numbers game! Increasing your prospects, will in turn increase your leads, which in turn will increase your customers = increased revenue.
And yes, this is true to a certain degree. But what if the increased traffic (prospects)to your website generated warmer leads that traditional lead generation methods. You should then be able to increase your ratio of prospects/leads and ultimately leads/customers. So the key here is to really understand your audience and provide links to landing pages that are of interest to your prospects.
There are two types of SEO, on-page SEO and off-page SEO. On-page SEO accounts for 25% and off-page SEO accounts for 75% when it comes to determining influencing factors for organic rankings on google.
The objective for on-page SEO is to convert more prospects to leads and off-page SEO to drive traffic to the website.
On-page SEO
Is the keyword rich content that is on your website. This is why it is important to have as much content as possible. Another factor influencing the organic rankings is updated content, so its important to be updating your content as often as possible. This is the benefit of having a regular blog. Content needs to be written with the consumer in mind, providing the information they are looking for, however it is also important to ensure the content includes the keywords that your prospects are searching for.
Off-page SEO
This is a major factor, 75%, when it comes to organic rankings. Off page SEO relates to the links you have pointing to your website. These need to be keywords your prospects are using and they must direct your prospects to a landing page on your website that is of interest them. These links are known as inbound links and the more inbound links you have the better with regards to boosting your organic rankings.
It is important to make sure that your links are using your keywords, rather than text such as "click here".
Writing content that is not only published on your website but in other areas will help to establish yourself as an industry thought leader and will help to raise the credibility of your company. Publishing regular, valuable content will create a following, an audience that you will be able to network with and build a strong rapport with online.