Want to get in front of your customers for the best ROI?
If so, you need to focus on SEO – Search Engine Optimisation – to get free visibility on Google and other search engines.
Of course, nothing is free. You’ll have to put in the hours and maybe get someone trustworthy to help you.
What is SEO?
Search Engine Optimisation or Optimization if you’re from across the pond, is the process of optimising your website, so that it ranks, higher up the search results in search engines, especially Google. If you rank well in Google, you’ll do well in Bing, Yahoo etc.
How can you optimise for Google
Follow the guidelines. Google want you to rank well. They want better websites, to build a better World Wide Web.
There’s too much to talk about here. We’ll cover some of this in detail later. But for now…
Some things to think about
- Beware of inflated claims to get you to the top of major search engines. It’s not that easy.
- What keywords are used in a search engine to find your website?
- How much interest is there in your product or service on the Internet?
- Who is or will be your main competition?
- How much is your competition willing to spend on their campaign?
- How much time can you spend doing SEO?
- Not all links are equal. Some are simply dangerous.
- What is E-A-T and why is it important?
- The list goes on…
Whether you’re at the initial planning stages of starting a business, website, marketing strategy, it is important to think about Search Engine Optimisation and make it a very high priority.
It is important to consider search engine optimisation during the initial stages of your website design process and is important to understand that you must have page content that is relevant to the search engine phrase you’d like to rank highly in.
Black Hat or White Hat, or Grey?
Do you like to take the quick and easy route in life? Then look for a Black Hat SEO. They can get good results and quickly. But, you’ll pay for it in the long run. Possibly, when you’ve got some good sales and invested in your business. Then, one day Google will drop you like a scorned lover. If you try and game Google, they’ll find you out and punish you with a penalty. Then suddenly, you have no business. What do you tell your staff, suppliers, investors, family?
I know, because it happened to me. Fortunately, I managed to fix the problem but that doesn’t happen to everyone. I know of an online travel company that turned down a £40 million offer for their business and then got a penalty they didn’t recover from. Sounds like I’m selling. That’s just a necessary story to illustrate the need to be a White Hat SEO. Don’t be tempted with quick wins.
Grey Hat is a mixture of good and bad SEO. Don’t be tempted.
What can you do…
- Some of the stuff above, like…
- Find out what keywords are used to find your website.
- How many times are those keywords searched for.
- Look for alternative keywords that you could rank for.
- Discovering what your competition is ranking for and how difficult it is to rank for.
- Increase your return on investment
- Don’t think it’s that simple. There’s much, much more.