The Beautiful Beginning..
Ahh. You have finally taken that step in life where you have made the decision to quit your robotic job and taken that leap of faith and started your own company. You take all the necessary steps in making sure your business is going to get the exposure it deserves. You get your product in line, your employees in shape, and have yourself a beautiful website built. Now you are ready to take on the world and start making money enjoying doing what you love…
My Web Developer Screwed Me!
Except that doesn’t happen… You start to Google words related to your business and for some unexplainable reason, your website is nowhere to be found. You start to dig a little deeper and finally find your website located on page 17. Panic mode sets in and all these questions arise into your brain. How did this happen? Why did this happen? I spent all this money on a website but nobody looks on page 17! There surely must be some mistake! You decide there must be a reasonable explanation and call your web developer right away. You reach your developer and he calmly explains to you that just because you have a website, doesn’t mean your website will be seen on the first few pages of Google. Then he states, if you want your website ranked, you need SEO!
What the Hell is SEO?
I know what you are thinking.. What the hell is SEO and why is it so important to my business? SEO stands for “search engine optimization.” It is the process of getting traffic from the “free”, “organic”, “natural” or “editorial” search results on search engines. In other words, it gets your website ranked to top pages of Google, Yahoo, and Bing where your site will actually be visible to your target customer. Now it is true that a company can gain traffic through other sources of marketing, however without SEO, most websites will end up having their content unclaimed and therefore go by unrecognized to your target audience. So here comes the big question: Is SEO something I can do myself, or do I need to hire a professional?
Becoming Familiar with SEO
SEO can be described as your website consisting of basic components such as keywords, linkbuilding, content, and navigability. In order to obtain these basic components, one must submerse themselves in knowledge regarding successful keyword research, on-page SEO, word count, proof of relevant terms, internal links, use of header and META tags, site wide SEO, etc. One must also become familiar with Google’s ever-changing updates from Panda… and in case you aren’t sure what Panda is, it is a change to Google’s search results ranking algorithm that aims to lower the rank of “low-quality sites” and return higher-quality sites near the top. If that statement went completely over your head, you are not alone.
The End Result
Fortunately, SEO can be considered a foreign language. It is not impossible to learn on your own, but you may have better results by contacting a professional to instruct or fulfill your businesses needs. No matter whether you decide to set out on your own or hire a professional, it is clear that SEO is an important tool to have you business succeed. As Milton Berle once said “If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.”
