subject: Why is search engine optimization or SEO important to your business? [print this page]
Search Engine Optimisation is not a simple process. Nor is it a process that can be approached complacently. For an SEO campaign to be a wild success, it must be planned correctly, be considered, and backed up with hard evidence such as traffic reports, relevance of keywords, and appropriate fit for the company running the campaign. In the initial stages, a Search Engine Optimisation project must begin with a complete and comprehensive review of the client website, followed by a series of reports that will assist in developing the strategy to be taken, then the first stages of actual SEO work will be all of the on-page SEO changes that are required. Depending on the size of the website and the work required, this may take a few days, to a month to complete. All the way through, the SEO company, and the client should be in constant contact with each other, with the SEO agency seeking feedback and input from the client, then implementing these changes.
Following the on page SEO work, and online marketing campaign initiation, comes the start of long term off-page SEO work, which includes some of the following:
A) Link building - the art (and it is an art) of finding, arranging and implementing quality links that will point to relevant pages on the client website. This is a complex task, and is achieved through direct requests, good quality directories, press releases, forum posts, and link baiting strategies.
B) Content creation - Despite what you think, or what anyone may tell you, if your website is a mere 10-20 pages it will never be considered an authority in its industry. As with any business, you will always see new competitors enter your market, they are enthusiastic, motivated and eager to succeed. As these competitors enter the arena, it is important that you and your website maintains dominance in online positioning. One strong method of doing this is to continuously increase your content. By increasing and refreshing your content, you will establish credibility and provide additional pages to link to on your website.
A quality web marketing agency will be honest with you and tell you the honest truth, even if it hurts. There is no use having a fantastic SEO campaign, with millions of hits on your website, but the site containing broken links, poor usability or frustrating navigation. That's a sure fire way to annoy visitors, and they will leave as fast as they arrived. Your web marketing agency should work with you in the initial stages to ensure your site is user friendly, and has the best possible chance of not only gaining traffic - as that's only half the battle - but actually is capable of converting that traffic into paying customer. The key to this is ongoing management, and tracking, and tweating to ensure results are being delivered.
Why is search engine optimization or SEO important to your business?
