So, you’ve a had a great idea. You’ve implemented the great idea. The great idea has taken root and grown into a company. The company has become its own entity providing a valuable service. You’ve taken to the internet and begun to market the company as a provider of this great service. The biggest thing left is to make sure your sites are visible, and there are consumers who can find you in the vastness that is the World Wide Web. With this need for visibility, an entire marketing niche has cropped up dedicated to ensuring companies have a streamlined website that can easily be found by a search engine, this industry is based around Search Engine Optimization.
The idea here is that when a potential client is looking for a service you provide, but is unsure of where to go, they turn to their computer and type a few keywords into their browser of choice. In these instances, it is the listings ranked as the highest matches to these keywords that the client will see displayed first, thus increasing the likelihood the client will visit the first few website returned by the search engine and one of those companies listed will be awarded that client’s business. This necessitates that your website must be one of the first few pages brought up by the search engine when keywords related to your business are typed in. Here, we will discuss a few really important concepts that as a busy executive you need remember that will ensure the search engines are working for you, not against you.
The first thing we need to address here is that it is of paramount importance to remember your content is, above all else, meant for human consumption! It is necessary to ensure that your blog, or company website caters to the person who will inevitably be consuming your content vs. the bot which will aid that person in finding your content. It may be tempting to stuff your website with keywords so that a potential client lands on your page and that your page will be the first listing returned by any search engine, but this won’t work. Above all else you need to have engaging content which prompts your prospective clients to choose you over the thousands of other companies offering a similar product or service. A well designed website will include pictures and text with a few keywords used in context within your website or blog. It will be attractively laid out, easy to navigate and the content must read as genuine and interesting not as honey laid out to attract search robots at all costs.
Search Engine Optimization is not simply about repeating key words or phrases over and over again or loading your page up with a bunch of words designed with the intent to drag customers to your page. What many don’t realize is that search engine crawlers are programmed to look for this sort of strategy, and don’t reward it. In fact you may find that your website will be penalized for this! What was meant to promote your page could, instead, hurt it. Make sure your website uses the right keywords to ensure you are searchable, and that these words and groups of words are repeated within your text, but in a way that makes sense to the reader.
As an executive running a company you can help drive good SEO practice even if you are not hands on with marketing efforts. A great place to begin good Search Engine Optimization is to create a list of keywords and phrases. Your SEO team can use your input to help their research into the key words and phrases they want to rank highly for. Your SEO team will then build the pages of your website around these validated phrases. This process will allow you to utilize keywords related to your business to attract potential customers to your page while offering customer friendly, digestible content which is straight to the point, and relevant to what the customer is searching for. You should start with the core keywords you wish to be found under, but as your site grows and you add pages, it is important to try and remember even the most obscure keywords which might relate to your business to make sure you are not missing out on any opportunities.
An important piece of the Search Engine Optimization puzzle is the URL of your webpage. Make sure that your web address is pertinent to the product or service that you offer. If you are a social media marketing company, placing your website at www.floweryflowers.com is NOT the way to go. Try to buy the URL that is as close to who your company is and what it does as possible. When choosing your domain, also avoid complicated combinations of letters and numbers that don’t make sense. Using an easy to remember, straight forward domain name makes it possible to not only find you in a search engine, but also it helps to promote a return customer as an easy to recall domain name will be at the forefront of a persons mind versus a complicated one like www.getsocial.com/X9783_YMKS997.edu.
Ultimately, good SEO is about creating a website which is searchable, to the point, concise, and all-encompassing of the services your company offers in the clearest possible manner. There are many SEO tips and tricks for raising your search engine ranking, and tonnes of information with regards to how to better your ranking. Above all else, you must have easy to find, digestible content aimed at the consumer and not at a search engine bot. Make sure that in all areas of planning and executing your website, the emphasis is on the customer while maintaining a minute, peripheral focus on Search Engine Optimization to ensure success.
Remember, this is just an introduction to good SEO basics. You should also check out some of our other blogs on SEO. If you would like some expert advice on internet marketing or just to see if we can help your business grow with good SEO, contact Guaranteed SEO here.