Being found by your target audience on the Internet is a great way to keep your new business pipeline full. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) involves several ways to raise your website's search engine visibility and page rankings. They include high quality original content with keywords, phrases and sentences that have contextual and situational meaning for the searching audience. Off page SEO - social marketing, email marketing, blogging and back-linking campaigns are very important in today's SEO world. Additionally, good clean HTML code helps to grease the skids for search engines. In some circles, the SEO profession has a reputation only slightly above tax collection and politics. There has been a lot of snake oil sold in the SEO marketplace. Brash claims and promises are made to business owners. "We'll get your website in the first few listings on Google for your targeted keywords!" Those promises may be legitimate if the person making them is among the elite in the online marketing industry. And keep in mind that your value proposition and calls to action need to be clear and strong! When your prospect lands on your website, the user experience must be a good one.
The search engine's mission is to find you - the searcher - the best information or companies to help you, according to that for which you're searching or shopping. Trying to fake out Google was once a highly profitable game for sketchy web development companies. Attempting to learn the algorithms and get unworthy sites to rank high serves nobody! Google has figured this out and has been making big changes - for the better. Some have cried foul, mostly those fouling up the SEO industry.
There are some firms (including very small shops) who build great websites in clean code, which is step one. Then they focus on helping the client create excellent content that is relevant and valuable to the target audience. Effectively placing links off page - on third party websites, social media, blogs and directories that drive clicks to your website is key. This gives your site authoritative status - votes of confidence which Google rewards.
The bottom line is this: You need to add value to the Internet to help increase targeted traffic to your website. That helps everyone in business!
Chuck Sink is president of Chuck Sink Link, Hopkinton, N.H.