You’ve built an incredible looking website, now what?
Just because you’ve built it, there is no guarantee that anyone will find it. In most cases, if all that you do is have an incredible website designed for you and nothing more, well you sure are in for a shocking surprise.
What most website design companies fail to tell you is that building your website is only the beginning, and in most cases, it’s the easy part.
The truth is that if you are looking to be found online by your prospects, customers and clients you need to be willing to put the work behind getting found.
Otherwise, does it really matter how nice your website looks?
The businesses that are really making a profit from their online presence are the ones that are found on the first page of the search engines. Everyone else is sitting there scratching their head trying to figure out why their website is not getting the traffic that they are looking for.
This is why search engine optimization (“SEO”) is such a critical component of developing and creating an effective online presence.
Look at SEO like gas is to a car. Without it, it won’t go anywhere no matter how nice it is.
Make sense?
What is Search Engine Optimization (“SEO”)?
SEO is basically a catch all phrase that describes anything and everything that is done so that your website is found be YOUR targeted audience. The people that are looking for the products and services that you have to offer.
The main reason that people use SEO is to naturally increase your website visibility in the search engines also known as “organic listings”.
There are five main components to a successful SEO campaign.
- Market Research: Market Research is crucial yet so often overlooked. Market research is about identifying who your target market is. By identifying your market audience, everything that is done, is done with the single purpose of attracting your ideal target audience.
- Keyword Research: Keyword research is done to identify what your buyer’s type into the search engine to find your products, services and business. Keyword research is the pulse by which everything is managed.
- On-page SEO: On-page SEO covers anything that you can control on your site. These areas are as page titles, post titles, images, text areas, links on your site, website load time, and navigation structure.
- Off-page SEO: Off-page SEO anything that you that is not accomplished directly ON your website. This often refers to bookmarks, social media indicators and inbound links to your website from third-party websites.
- Performance: Measure, Monitor and Adjust. This is a critical part of ensuring that you’re capturing as much traffic as possible. That the traffic that you are bringing in, is converting to sales and tracking the ranking of your keywords.
As complicated as all this may sounds, it’s really about understanding the science behind SEO and getting started in making the changes to your site. There are tons of books, resources online and quality SEO consultants that will help you to quickly see the results that you are looking for.