If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? While we can’t answer that age-old question, here’s one we can: If you build a website, but don’t properly optimize and promote it, does it benefit your bottom line? Don’t count on it.
Crafting a killer website is only the first step toward online success. The next step is Search Engine Optimization, or SEO. This article explains the ins and outs of how SEO helps get your website’s message heard.
How can SEO get your website’s message heard?
When a potential customer uses a search engine to look for a product or service that you offer, how many pages do you think they look through to find what they want? Most people searching online don’t look further than page one on Google, Yahoo or Bing. If your potential customer doesn’t see you on page one or two, do you think they will keep searching? Or will they click on a competitor’s site? These basic questions help illustrate the value of SEO.
search engine optimization (SEO): n. is the process of affecting the visibility of a website or a web page in a search engine’s “natural” or un-paid (“organic”) search results.
As an online marketing strategy, SEO considers how search engines work, what people search for, the actual search terms or keywords typed into search engines and which search engines are preferred by their targeted audience. Optimizing a website may involve editing its content, HTML and associated coding to both increase its relevance to specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines.
What does a solid SEO strategy involve?
Search engine optimization isn’t just about content; it’s a complex process that involves many different steps and strategies.
Along with page optimization, SEO also involves:
- Site Monitoring
- Keyword Research
- Competitive Analysis
- Link Analysis and Acquisition
- Page Management
- SERP Rank Tracking
- and more
Monitoring all of these also requires the use of specific software and online tools to ensure the optimization process is contributing to sales and revenue. In a nutshell, it’s complicated.
Planning Your SEO Strategy
The rules of online search are constantly evolving, with new challenges and opportunities emerging almost daily. In an age where more and more marketing is being automated, SEO still requires hands-on investment and constant attention. As such, developing and managing a successful SEO strategy takes a lot of time, energy, and patience. It takes time because search engine optimization effects organic search results, which are culled over time by the search engines as they spider the entire Internet.
This brings us to another important consideration regarding SEO: If not done properly, it could become a very big problem and take a long time to fix. One small error or misstep and your website could be blacklisted by search engines. When that happens, it can take months before the search engines crawl your site again.
Where does that leave you in the meantime? How will people find out about your website then?
Enter the Online Marketing Agency. Blayzer has a dedicated team of online marketing professionals (known as our 1901 Marketing department) to handle your SEO needs along with any other online marketing strategies that could help your website’s message heard online. Whether you want a “whole nine yards” strategy, need to fix some problems, or just want to learn how to manage your own SEO strategy properly, Blayzer’s 1901 Marketing SEO team is here to help.
Contact Blayzer to learn more about our SEO and Online Marketing capabilities >>
