Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) are all the rage these days. Instead of wasting money sending traditional mail or phone ads to people who are unlikely to have an immediate interest in their products or services, SEO/SEM allows businesses to serve ads only to people who are likely to buy from them. or a competitor. at that very moment. Would you rather pay for each instance of your print ad shown on each copy of a newspaper sold, or would you rather target your ad only to people who have just done a web search for exactly what you sell? Even if each search engine impression costs significantly more than each print ad recipient, the performance might still be enough to make it worth the cost…and better yet, if you can follow some basic instructions, you might not. . it will even cost you something!
In general, people want to search websites, reviews, comparisons, and other information before searching for specific providers and professionals. If a search engine only showed sponsored advertising, it would have less value to search engines, which means fewer people would use it, so fewer advertisers would pay to advertise there. This business model produces a downward spiral that is simply unfeasible. Instead, search engines display paid advertising and “organic” search results. When Google’s web crawlers find and analyze a dentist’s website, for example, they find clues related to dentistry. They can also find location information, such as an address or a telephone area code. Later, when someone in that area searches for dentists, Google can list this dentist in organic search results alongside paid advertisers. This impression cost the dentist nothing!
So how can businesses get more free, organic listing impressions? This is what search engine optimization (SEO) addresses, and while it may require an investment of time, effort, or capital to implement, the specific cost per impression (CPI) or cost per click (CPC) is zero. In short, the more effort you’re willing to put in, the lower the out-of-pocket cost of implementation.
Before you start to imagine that SEO is simply a checklist of things you need to do to get your website to the top of organic search results forever, let me point out that you are not the only one working to achieve this goal; your competitors are too. In an unrelated analogy, college grads used to have trouble getting jobs, but this caused more people to get their sheepskins today than jobs for college grads, so many are unemployed while others continue in college. graduate school, which will eventually make that distinction less sparse, too. Similarly, the distinction of being among the top ranked in organic search is a moving target that requires ongoing effort on your part to keep improving your rankings compared to your competitors.
You’ve probably heard the old saying that banks only lend you money when you don’t need it. Well, it’s similar with organic search rankings. If you search for “shipping,” you’re much more likely to find UPS and FedEx in your search results than some small local courier service. Because? Google has nothing against small local messengers, but it wants to deliver the best possible results to as many end users as possible so that those end users keep coming back, instead of jumping to Bing or Yahoo. There is a better chance that UPS or FedEx can handle the shipping needs of any end user than a small local courier service.
Basically, you need to make your website look like a large, well-regarded resource in your field so that search engines present you as such. As? You need more referrals, more traffic, and more conversions. I hate to call them “tricks” but there are a few things to keep in mind that will help you improve your ranking.
One “trick” is to specialize; Instead of trying to be everything to everyone, try to be the best at something specific. That little local courier in my last example has no chance of beating UPS worldwide, but it may be the best delivery service in the town of White Plains, New York. They can come on call and do same day pickup and delivery at reasonable prices. They may offer packing services and shipping supplies at the time of pickup, so you can just hand them flowers, your grandmother’s heirloom glass vase, a card, and an address, and leave the rest to them. It would be pointless for that courier to try to rank first in global searches for “shipping,” but if you focus on winning in searches around “White Plains, NY,” for “same day delivery” or “packaging and shipping “. he has a much better chance of becoming the top ranked.
Once again, I feel you thinking, “How?” Well, the most obvious answer is that the courier’s website should emphasize that it specializes in such specialties. (Note to self: get the thesaurus.) Your website content should discuss the strengths of the courier service in White Plains, New York, in same day delivery and packaging and shipping. Related page titles should include the words White Plains, NY, Same Day Delivery, and Pack & Ship. Those page headers should include White Plains, NY, Same Day Delivery, and Pack and Ship. Meta descriptions on those pages should include White Plains, NY, same day delivery, and packing and shipping. The meta keywords for those pages should include the words White Plains, NY, same day delivery, and packing and shipping. Lest you think you also needed a thesaurus for those last five sentences, let me make it clear that you want to achieve exactly the repeatability I presented. The content, titles, headings, descriptions and keywords must present a clear, unified, unambiguous and unambiguous representation of the web page.
Another “trick” is to cultivate incoming links. For the uninitiated, the idea is that when other websites link to yours, search engines will treat it as a testimonial to your website and improve your website’s ranking in organic search results. Referring website ranking is taken into account, so testimonials from Microsoft.com or WSJ.com are more valuable than those from smaller websites, but any ranking point is better than none, so ask your friends, customers and suppliers would. do a link exchange with you. Rather than dilute the content of your web page, you’ll probably want to place your links on a “links” or “resources” page other than your home page, but keep in mind that you’ll get less traffic than your home page, and you’ll also want to do the same with you. Also, the best way to implement this is to make the desired search keywords serve as the link, so this for example:
For the best value in Westchester small business IT support, contact Maverick IT Solutions, Inc..
is less better than this:
For the best Value in Westchester Small Business IT Supportcontact Maverick IT Solutions, Inc.
Other ways to generate more inbound links are blogging, tweeting, wall posting, answering newsgroup questions, or posting articles. Having articles posted with “about the author” links or making newsgroup posts with links in your signature block are obvious ways to generate inbound links, especially if they are high-traffic, well-regarded, and widely-read articles (like this one). . However, even blog posts on your own website can be retweeted on Twitter, shared on Facebook, or syndicated on content-seeking sites. We use Google Alerts to monitor any online mention of our company, and we’ve found that many of our blog posts and articles have appeared in the strangest of places… but they all count as free backlinks! Even simply creating Linked-in and Facebook pages for your business are great ways to get a few more points in the search engine rankings, and give you more ways to showcase yourself to your prospects.
Many small businesses will only link to their main home page, but if you create individual landing pages and think of them as separate campaigns, you can optimize each of those titles, headers, descriptions, keywords, and content, individually. For example:
- MaverickSolutions.biz is the main page of our business
- MaverickSolutions.biz/solutions_sec.htm is a subpage for when we promote our security and surveillance systems
- MaverickSolutions.biz/schools.htm it’s a subpage for when we promote ourselves to schools
- MaverickSolutions.biz/promo/ is a landing page we set up for a free PC tune-up campaign we ran a few months ago (yes, you can participate if you’re in the greater New York area).
- You can even link to individual blog articles you’ve published on particular topics, such as MaverickSolutions.biz/blog/2010/how-I-got-a-virus-and-how-got-rid-of-it/
Once you’ve started to build some momentum in your website’s rankings, you can start to focus some efforts on further ranking optimization. If you and a friend promote each other on your own small business websites, since each of you has a low ranking score, the benefit to each of you is low. However, if you could get links from larger companies, they would be more valuable. One way to do this is to partner with larger companies; we are a Microsoft partner company so we are listed in their partner directory and have a link from there. Another way is to get involved in high-profile projects; we have worked as subject matter experts (SMEs) for the Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA), and have obtained links from them. An easy way is to join local business networking groups and get links from their web pages to yours; we joined our local BNI chapter. There are even “hacks” for reporters to cite you as an expert in the articles they’re writing in your field, and they’ll often provide links as well. When these articles are syndicated in dozens or hundreds of secondary publications online, you can get great exposure.
By reading this article, you have already taken the first steps. You have separated yourself from the crowd of people who don’t care, don’t know, and don’t want to know. You have shown that you are willing to learn and take action to improve your search engine rankings. You can do more independent research and reading to find more practical information on SEO, but if you ever hit a roadblock or need more help, Maverick Solutions is just a click away, ready to advise and help you with SEO or anything else. small problem. consulting and business technology support. We’ve helped movers, real estate agents, mortgage bankers, title companies, business coaches, contractors, and attorneys with their SEO, and we’d be happy to help you too.