Your Business’ Website Will Benefit From Developing A Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Plan
By David L. Brown, Chairman, CEO and President of http://www.Web.com
Does your business have a website? If so, have you ever tried to find it via search engines like Google, Yahoo or Bing? If you have tried and it does not appear at all, or appears well past page one of the search results, then your business’ website will benefit from developing a search engine optimization (SEO) plan.
Today, most small business owners lack the time and resources needed to set up and manage an effective online presence. In a survey conducted by Web.com last fall, more than half of the small business decision-makers surveyed said that they understand online and digital capabilities are very important to their business overall and that web, social media and mobile will increasingly play an important role for their business within the next few years. Yet, many small business owners do not deploy an SEO strategy to help drive increased traffic to their websites.
SEO 101
Simply stated, SEO is the most direct roadmap that leads customers to your website. Effective SEO must be built into your site. SEO evaluates your website’s reach across the Internet – including what people are saying about you on social media. So, ask yourself these questions – Is your business active on social media? Is your website linked to your social channels? Additionally your SEO rating is affected by the key measurements from the search engines, like Google, as they assess the relevancy of your website based on how people search for your website. Google does this by examining a website’s programming code, as well as the key words written in the code. Using a top-down approach, Google reviews the title tags, page description, relevant links – and it also reads website image descriptions to determine your website’s rank.
Is Your Website SEO Optimized?
SEO is the primary tool in which Google reads your website to determine organic ranking in a user’s search. To find out if your website is SEO-optimized, you can simply search Google to see if your website comes up in the search listings. If it doesn’t, your website is most likely not optimized.
If You Do One Thing, Be Consistent
Search engines are looking at your company’s website and social footprint together to understand who you are, what you do and how relevant your business is to searchers looking for your type of business. It’s key that everywhere you focus online that you use consistent words to describe your business and be sure those words are ones that your customers would use when searching for you. It may sound elementary, but even your business name needs to be represented consistently on your social sites and your main company website. Building strong SEO takes time but knowing where to start will help establish your online relevance and credibility. Start with strong, solid copy on your website to describe your business and your value proposition. Then, use that same copy and set up your social pages, such as Yelp, Google+, Facebook, and more. Once you’ve established a consistent footprint on both your website and social sites, build on your website’s credibility by adding unique content. The more unique content you can write and post on your social sites, the more credible you will appear to search engines and searchers alike. With attention and focus, your SEO will improve over time. Keep your messaging consistent, add updated content regularly and pay attention to the key words and descriptions you use on each new page. Be sure to update your website’s SEO tags and descriptions, as well.
In the end, if you want to increase your sales/revenues and have your website show up at the top of search engine results, you must invest time and resources into building an effective SEO plan. You and your business will be thankful you did!
