4 reasons why SEO is important for your Small Business
Do you know that 44% of online shoppers begin by using a search engine?
Most of your potential Clients are eager to buy your products/services provided they can reach your website. Is your website ranking well on Search Engines like Google? Online presence via Search engines is vital for business today as more and more people are browsing online for services or products. Search Engine Optimization is a process of optimizing a website to rank on the 1st page of Search Engines like Google.
SEO has great many advantages over other internet marketing strategies and traditional offline promotions.
4 reasons why SEO is important for your Small Business:
- Cost Effective
- International Reach
- Higher Conversion Ratio
- Trust Factor – Reputation
Cost Effective:
To start with SEO is the most affordable and cost effective of all the internet marketing strategies. Around the world Search Engines like Google simply dominate the internet and as a result having your website present there will attract millions of potential visitors and buyers via Google. Despite huge reach and sales, SEO process takes no more than 6-9 months. After which it is free for lifetime.
International Reach:
Unlike offline marketing strategies Search Engine Optimization can help you reach around the globe. A specific city, State, country or an entire continent it is easy to reach both wide as well as a specific local audience with SEO. Just add GEO targeted keywords to your SEO strategy and you promote your product/service around the world.
Higher Conversion Ratio:
SEO is not just a marketing process, it is half sales process too as Search Engine Optimization filters your potential clients and ensures high conversion ratio. Since SEO works on Targeted keywords, there is little or no chance for unwanted traffic as most visitors through Search Engines are filtered by targeted keywords and GEO locations. As a result, time consumed for lead organization and filtering is completely freed up and your business development and Sales team can focus just on Client interaction.
Trust Factor:
Yet another benefit added by Search Engine Optimization is, trust factor or business credibility along with a huge Brand Reputation boost. Corporates and business firms around the world are spending millions every year for reputation building and trust factor development alone. However SEO can provide considerable boost to your website’s trust factor and reputation with ease.
People always trust websites and products that rank well on Google and as result SEO process can successfully act as a supplement to your reputation/brand management.
Important Notes:
SEO will surely work, however always note that not all the SEO agencies are as good as they assure, be warned there are lot of Black Hat SEO companies out there. Always hire a Professional Search Engine Optimization Company who could be trusted.
How to run an effective off page Optimization campaign
What is Off-Page Optimization?
Off-Page Optimization includes any optimization (Promotion) carried outside your website. Building links, bringing in traffic (visitors) and increasing PR are some of the most common factors achieved through Off-Page Optimization.
Common misconception about Off-Page Optimization:
Most SEO Analysts believe Off-Page Optimization means just link building links back towards the targeted website. In fact Off-Page Optimization is not to be entirely focused on Search Engines such as Google.
Also most SEOs are worried about Dofollow links and PR rather than link relevance. Such aggressive and link focused Off-Page SEO process creates one of the most common spamming issue to web masters of reputed websites. The term “SEO Spamming” refers to the practice of creating links by any means around the web.
What should be the focus of an Effective Off-Page Optimization?
Off page SEO should try to bring in Potential leads and not just ideal traffic such as the case with spammy article directories. An effective Off-Page SEO campaign should include creating Off-Page contents, Social participation, and activity on Forum/discussion sites and on freelance job posting sites.
A smart Internet Marketing expert should be capable of filtering the traffic that enters his/her website. This can be done effectively by sharing links exclusively on sites that are highly lead centric. It is more important to consider the conversion ratio rather than empty traffic that only adds to bounce ratio.
Most Important activities – Off-Page Optimization:
Off-Page Optimization should be focused on bring in potential leads and customers from other websites and to help overall SEO process. Most advised Off-Page Search Engine Optimization activities are as follows:
- Classified Ads Creation
- Brand Mentions or Branding Links (use your product or brand name as Anchor Text)
- Local Business Directories
- Social Blogging (Consider it as FAQ and answer your client’s issues and drive them to your site)
- Social Media (most important of all SEO Promotions)
- Social Book Marking (Still works)
- Forum Participation
- Participate on QA sites
- Free Lance and business (Project) posting sites
- Most Importantly don’t leave a plain link with keyword and expect it to work (any more)
On-Page elements that impact Off-Page Success:
It is needless to explain the importance of website content, beyond that always make sure your website has a blog and it is regularly updated. Besides adding more content value to your websites, blogs enables a wide window of SEO opportunities. Internal linking, Site structure, frequent Google Crawl, PR and most importantly you can use your blogs as a means to build natural links through social Bookmarking, Discussion sites and Forum sites.
Note: Always remember On-Page Optimization is the most important part of SEO and you need to ensure your website’s On-Page is perfect before you can initiate Off-Page Optimization process.
Beyond SEO:
Most online business firms restrict their marketing and promotional opportunities by developing a narrow Search Engine centric mindedness, or Google centric to be frank. Off-Page Optimization should include elements that are beyond SEO Link Building, and focus on bring in filtered Leads rather than just focusing on Ranking a website on Google.
For instance some Classified ad sites don’t provide links, but are of high value to get potential leads, just make sure you provide some other means for people to contact you directly such as Phone number or mail Id. After all a lead is a lead and it matters little from where it comes, always make sure your business has different modes of lead generation.
Conclusions:
Consider Off-Page Optimization as a means to increase your lead generation and reputation along with SEO results, not just towards GOOGLE.
Beyond Links - NEO SEO 