SEO, What Is It Anyway?

Hint – It’s not just about adding search engine optimization keywords to your Website

SEO, or search engine optimization, is a big mystery to many people. While many of us in the media and communications business have no trouble understanding it, it can be misunderstood by entrepreneurs and business people worldwide.

If you fall into this category, here is some simple information to help you understand SEO better.

What is SEO?

Search engine optimization, or SEO, means that you provide content or text (also known as copy), on the Web that search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo! can find.

Why is this important?

When potential customers are looking for your products and services to solve their problems, they will type keyword phrases into the “search” box of the search engines, and Websites pertaining to those keywords will be listed. Then, people usually click on one of the Websites listed on the first page.

And guess what?

If your Website is not listed in the search-engine results that pop up, people are going to visit the Websites that are listed. This means that you will lose a lot of sales to the competition, even if you are strictly a brick-and-mortar business.

More than 2 billion people use the Internet, and if you are not using it to capture new sales and let potential customers know about your products and services, it’s time to catch up and beat the competition!

How Do You Use SEO?

Today, the term “SEO” is everywhere. And since many business owners simply do not have the time to deal with it, they hand it over to their IT department or purchase a service to add SEO keywords.

Big mistake and a waste of money! Why?

SEO is not simply about adding keywords to your Website or having a service automate the process!

Instead, SEO is about providing valuable information to your customers through well-written content. And when you do this, the search engines see you as providing value as well, and your chances of obtaining higher rankings in the search results will increase.

SEO is actually content marketing and should be part of your overall marketing and public relations strategy. And while you may think customers just want to read brief text on your site and move one, you could be very wrong.

Per a recent article in the Huffington Post, “When It Comes to SEO, Content is King”:

“In one year alone, Google makes more than 500 changes to their ranking algorithm. With each change, the techniques to get your website in front of the eyes that matter also changes. If businesses today want to rank in search results, they’ll find that Google is looking for high quality, unique content on their website — and lots of it. And the trend seems to be that the old adage ‘content is king’ will only grow in importance in the coming months and years.”

How Do You Make SEO Work For You?

Since search engine optimization is really about providing unique content to your customers, it’s essential to have an experienced copywriter/content strategist help you. An experienced content strategist knows how to use search engine optimization while providing valuable content and marketing pages that “sell.”

Can you tech team write marketing copy?

How about that automated service that “guarantees” it will optimize your site for the search engines?

Nope. Instead of wasting your money, hire the right person for the job. And if you don’t think it’s worth it, do a test project. Have an SEO content strategist write a landing page, article, blog, or other piece of content for you. Then, see what happens with your Google Analytics and check your rankings on the search engines.

Trust me. If you hire a good SEO content strategist, you will see results and you’ll wonder why you didn’t do this sooner.

SEO is a Sales Secret.

Today, many companies do not take advantage of search engine optimization and content management strategies to increase site traffic and sales. Well, now that you know what SEO is really about, you can use it to your advantage. If not, your competitors will!

What are you going to do today to increase your site traffic?

For help with your SEO content strategies and management, please contact Melanie Rembrandt at www.rembrandtwrites.com.