SEO is known as one of the most cost effective forms of marketing available today.
An online presence these days is no longer a luxury, it has become essential. This is because in todays ‘Microwave’ society, people are no longer spending minutes flipping through the Yellow Pages. They simply Google the nearest Bakery, or Flower Shop, or Kmart in a matter of seconds.
Good Search Engine Optimisation ensures your website is found in the search for your products or services. SEO is crucial to the success of your business website, because the first thing people will do when seeking your services online is search for something that relates to your business.
There are two areas of search engine optimisation, on page SEO and off page SEO.
On page SEO is where you use online tools (together with educated guesses) to discover the key phrases potential customers are using when seeking your services, then optimise your website for those phrases. Optimising your website for the search engines includes using those phrases in the domain name of your website, the title bar, the title tags, the filenames and more.
Off page SEO includes how many websites link back to you, and the quality of those websites (link popularity). Each link back to your website is counted as one ‘vote.’ The higher the quality of the ‘vote,’ the more important your website must be. Everything to do with off page SEO is based on link popularity. Backlinks are so crucial to the success of your business website we have dedicated month three to the introduction of generating backlinks to your website.
It’s important to get your on-page SEO sorted before you start to concentrate on off-page SEO.
SEO is your best friend when it comes to getting free traffic to your website.
For example, say you run a bakery in Avonhead, Christchurch. A potential customer is more than likely to type in a search such as: “bakery in avonhead christchurch” when looking for a good old fashioned Kiwi pie. If you are on the first page or indeed at number one in Google for that search phrase, you enjoy laser targeted advertising, and best of all, it is 100% free.
How much extra business do you think you could expect if you were at the top of Google for your business equivalent of “bakery in avonhead christchurch?” Who IS at the top of Google for your business equivalent of “bakery in avonhead christchurch?” Is it *gasp* – the COMPETITION?
If it IS your competition, they have taken a series of steps to properly optimise their website for the search engines.
As you probably know, most people don’t venture past the second page of search results. You want your business to appear amongst the first listings to potential customers online, right now, seeking your products and services. Customers that are currently being snapped up by the competition.
