Part 1 – Why search engines? – Who cares about search engines anyway?! Well your small, medium, or large business should – NO MATTER WHAT YOUR INDUSTRY (sorry about the yelling) – because it is the way people find everything (on or offline).
Part 2 – General Overview – Brief overview of the 4 principals of Search Engine Optimization and how to prepare your self, your website, and your company for this amazing marketing journey.
Part 3 – Coding – Sure, that word is scary, and if you’re a typical business owner or marketing person you’ll probably want nothing to do with this. But, knowing the basics can keep you out of trouble, maximize your exposure and marketing efforts and help you hire a great developer.
Part 4 – Content – Making sure your website has as much content as possible (unique content that is relevant to your business or website) and making sure it is fresh and up-to-date is one of the most powerful marketing techniques online and the only way to achieve long term search engine optimization success.
Part 5 – Links – Links are a vital (maybe one of the most important elements for a new website) portion of your web marketing, read this short guide to learn more.
Well this is it. It has taken a number of months to finish the entire 6 part series and this is the 6th part. First a recap:
Why the Web?
Do you really need to ask? More and more households in the United States, in Bonita Springs, and throughout the world are signing on and using this tool to discover businesses like yours!
You Need a Website
As a business owner you should be thinking of marketing 24/7. I know I probably don’t need to tell you this, but you need to be thinking about your clients, their concerns, their needs, and addressing them at every turn. Address your future clients’ needs in advertisements (learn from your current customers) and preemptively answer the questions you already know they have. You need to address your current clients’ wants by refining your processes, performing better services for cheaper, providing a better customer experience, etc. And, there is no better way to do this than a website. I know it’s sales-y coming from a guy that designs websites, but I have never experienced the same potential to meet and address all of these needs (across hundreds of clients) by any other means. A well crafted website can get the job done.
arket Your Damn Website! (sorry I cursed, I’m just passionate)
But, as you begin the process of developing your website keep in mind the rules of the web. You are probably already familiar with the rules of the web, you just need to KNOW and UNDERSTAND.
How do you find a business?
How do you look up the name of the city in Lebanon you were just asked about?
Simple, you open your favorite browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari) and you do a search. You look to Google, MSN, and Yahoo as your prophets, and their results guide you to the answers. So search engines need to be a priority. But it doesn’t end with search engines.
The general marketing of your site needs to be a priority. How are you going to get visitors, where will your site be seen? Concentrate on this, as well as what they see and the questions you answer once you get them to your site. Remember, a website alone will VERY RARELY accomplish anything. Expect to spend time and money getting your website marketed. Although this marketing medium is very powerful and very inexpensive (compared to print or other conventional mediums).
Learning The Rules of Search Engines:
- Make sure your website is up-to-snuff – your development team, you, or the automated software you select needs to take all marketing related elements of your site into account BEFORE IT IS CREATED. Removing this first speed bump will allow you to sail through the Internet’s super highway steadily. Make sure the code is tight, clean and includes all the attributes mentioned previously.
- Concentrate on getting content – Your website is not static. If you think it can sit there on the interweb lonely and stale, but perform you are dead wrong. Maybe you don’t believe a website can bring in business or shorten sales cycles? Great, but step aside as progressive forward-thinking businesses do, and snap up your market share and put you out of business. And content is the core of this marketing vehicle. Write about your events, your successes, even your failures. Connect with your customers and your website will begin to bring in traffic in very interesting ways!
- Get those links – Physical networking is a core of any business. You got a client from a friend of a friend. Linking is no different. You need to get your website out there, get people talking about it and get it known.
That’s it! It’s not rocket science (although some of the coding might be a little unfamiliar or seem complicated), but by following this simple guide you will be on the path to placing your website at the top of the search engines!
