How SEO will help small business
Promoting business online will require some SEO
Search engine optimization (SEO) will help your business and should be one of the primary goals of any small or medium sized business owner. Search engine optimization- SEO will help small business site be found in Google and the other search engines. But what steps do you need to take in order to get your listing returned near the top of the search results?
One of the saddest things I see repeatedly is people and businesses that spend money for hosting and a great looking website that does them no good, because almost no one ever visits their site. This is do to the lack of SEO (search engine optimization. Then they often throw good money after bad by mounting an expensive pay per click (PPC) campaign that is practically doomed to fail, because they are not ready for it. They do not have a thorough understanding of how to use pay per click to drive traffic to their web site, and their on-page SEO is weak -their pages are not optimized for their search terms.
What makes PPC (pay per click) campaigns of smaller businesses with new web sites often fail? First the price you pay with Google is dependent on Google’s quality score. If they don’t like your site enough to put you on the first or second page of their search results, how good a quality score are they going to give you? And the lower the quality score, the higher the price you’ll have to pay for each keyword! Secondly, advertising rates of return are often related to name recognition. Large well-known, established companies can afford to spend more than you can because they will get a higher rate of return. They’re not only in a position to outspend you on every keyword, they can often justify it by return on investment as well.
Get your site optimized and ranked first, then you will have a much better chance of a successful pay per click campaign. This is how SEO will help your small business grow online.
Design-How SEO will help small business
When you are putting up a new site you should stay away from ordering a fancy looking web site from a design company. I have seen these companies sell Flash based web sites to unsuspecting customers. These look great, but are practically useless in terms of being found in the search engines, as the search engines can’t read the information on these sites. If you are going to spend money with an outsider to build your site, make sure that they have at least a basic understanding of SEO and how it well help your small business.
Local Search-How SEO will help small business
How SEO will help your small business. Does your company do most of its business in your local area? If so your task will be much easier. Obviously it is much easier to compete with the other plumbers or electricians in your local area, than to compete with every one in the country. Optimizing your site with local SEO will help your small business be-found on the local directory.
Priorities-How SEO will help small business
Search engine optimization-how SEO will help your small business. As some one new to promoting on the internet, your first concern should be getting traffic to your site. Without traffic you have no chance to convert viewers into customers, as you have no viewers. Secondly, once you have traffic, your next priority should be on marketing to them. Give them some good information, so they see that you have expertise in your field, and so that you establish trust with them. Then give them a reason to take the next step -to call you, fill out your contact form, visit your store or buy your online product. Find a way to make them take action. Can you offer your online viewers a discount on your products or services if they take action right away? Only after you have taken care of the first two items should you worry about making your site into a designer’s dream. It should never be so bad a design that it detracts from your brand, but at the beginning it only needs to look reasonably good, not visually stunning.
For most businesses, the best traffic they can get is free traffic from the major search engines. Start with keyword research. This will improve your SEO and help your small business get notice. To get suggestions for keywords for your business, go to Google’s external keyword tool. (Just search for it in Google as they are updating their interface and the address may change). Make sure that you choose keywords with sufficient search volume and not too much competition. If your business is mostly local, you don’t need to worry too much about this -just choose main keywords for your business and add your location e.g. ocaladentist.org
When you have completed this, go back over your page and check that your keywords are featured prominently in your title and headings. There are many check lists available on the web to help you, but usually the first five or six factors on a list will be all you need. Now you need other sites to link back to you. Join some forums that relate to your site, and start posting. Then come back to your profile and add a link to your signature. You can also get backlinks by commenting on relevant blogs. Please be careful to leave useful comments specific to the discussion.
This is an overview of the process. There are many important aspects to each of these steps. If you need help, please contact me. Remember search engine optimization is cheap because the results justify the effort. No effort is ever cheap if you don’t get a return on your investment of time and money.
Take the time to learn to do it right, and your efforts will be rewarded with truly cheap search engine optimization.
