Starting a business is an exhilarating experience fraught with successes, failures, and worries. Along with coming up with the ideas, you’re responsible for making everything happen from sales to marketing to production.
One way to stem the advertising worry is to employ SEO practices. Search engine optimization is one of those catch phrases that many people use, but few actually do it well. The basic idea behind SEO is to give your business as much exposure as possible on the Internet. Here are five reasons why you need to start today to drive traffic to your website:
Save on advertising
No start-up has the capital to purchase ad space or hire an ad person right off the bat. Allow your business to bubble to the top when someone is searching for a particular item. Let the searching do the work for you.
Be first
In the search results, your company must appear within the first few pages of entries. If not, the searcher usually stops looking and either tries another search or quits altogether. Research shows that more than 80 percent of users click on first-page results. Less than 5 percent browse past the third page.
Be there
How many times have you searched for something by using a phrase? Most people turn to Google, Bing, or other search engines because they don’t exactly know for what they are looking. When your company appears on their search engine results page, that could trigger a reaction to give you a call.
Bottom line
SEO investment helps you leverage the investment you’ve already made to your company. It’s a way to maximize the site you’ve created.
Stay competitive and relevant
The only constant in life is change, and the digital landscape continues to evolve. However, searching will always be important. Thus, without search engine optimization, most sites would be invisible on the World Wide Web.
Now that you know WHY you need to use SEO, here’s how to achieve it.
- Write SEO words or phrases at least twice per paragraph. Obviously, it needs to sound natural. If you have to choose between sounding natural and having those two or three keywords in your paragraph, opt for sounding natural.
- Your website must have a site map. This makes it easier for search engines to find it.
- When designing URLs, use words and not numbers for different articles and subpages on your site. Also, hyphens in URLS and file names are treated as spaces, while underscores are not. www.yourwebsite.com/get-quote-here.
- When creating links within your website, hyperlink text and not “click here.”
- Use text in your navigation, not images. Images are counterproductive since search engines are not able to “see” them.
Remember that there is no instant gratification with SEO. Your website won’t become an overnight sensation once you start to employ these practices. It takes time and commitment.
There are many companies that specialize in SEO tactics and can help boost your business to the next level. Before picking up the phone, do your homework.
Search for services or items in your industry. Does your company appear? If the budget is tight (and it usually is), make changes to your site by adding those keywords. Wait a few days and see if your company moves up the ladder.
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