There is so much talk about SEO! And maybe you are thinking: I get most of my business through networking and referrals, do I really need SEO? It might make sense for businesses who are selling products online, but I am a service provider. How does SEO help my business?
Ok – so let’s start here. What is SEO?
Well you can read about the details in Dey’s blog posted a couple weeks ago – but in a nutshell: Search Engine Optimization is the process of helping YOUR business connect with the people who are searching online for what you do!
Why is SEO even important?
Right now, we are finding that more and more people are going to the website to gather information before making a decision – whether it is product based or service based. They are even doing research on WHO they want to work with before they contact an agency or company. People are being very cautious, and taking longer to make decisions. Everyone wants to feel more secure with who they choose to work with.
An SEO initiative helps companies use their websites to:
- Be an expert source of information
- Showcase the company’s clients/services/products/wins
- Create an easy way for the user to contact the company
- Provides a feeling of ease, trust and comfort to the user
There is a lot of competition out there, and if people are going to the web to do up-front research, it only helps your business if you are postured as the expert in your field, the trusted source for information, and you make it easy for people to contact you.
What is the value of doing SEO?
When a company's site is optimized to receive organic search traffic, it is getting essentially "free" traffic. You do some heavy lifting upfront to get the website ranking and converting, and then on an on-going basis your costs are much more minimal then the other forms of advertising. SEO is also specifically helpful if you are participating in a PPC and/or CPA campaign. Having your website optimized for search engine traffic allows for all your other marketing efforts to work more efficiently, lowering your cost-per-acquisition.
The primary methods of SEO:
A. Content & Meta fundamentals – Having content that is optimized for primary and secondary keywords will help your site rank over your competition for these keyword searches. If you content is in a format that is not recognized (i.e. Flash), or you don’t have enough pages of content over your competitors, you will miss out!
B. Site Popularity - It's one thing to have the content in place, but you also need to have other trusted sources giving you the "thumbs-up"! When you have both relevant and optimized content, AND the votes from other trusted sources, you will rank for search queries.
What’s the bottom line? Sales/leads!!
Every SEO initiative is complete when a conversion strategy is in place. The whole point of optimizing your website is to drive more traffic to the site to increase leads/sales. There are some great website tactics that can be deployed to help you capture and convert this “interested” traffic. You have the gas in the car, so let’s make sure the ignition works!
Now you can take a minute and ask yourself – does your website do all this? If it does not, CKMG can get you there!
And if it does, can it do it better?? Always! Right!
~Kat
Sales & Business Development Manager // CKMG
310-706-6917
