A look at SEO services from a business perspective
Three letters – SEO – doesn’t seem that significant individually, yet has had a significant role in transforming the marketing, PR and media landscape over recent years. Depending on who you ask, there will be a range of reactions towards SEO, from ultimate fans to wary skeptics. What was once seen as a quick and dirty method within the business marketing mix thanks to the process of placing links all over the web, the process has now become a battle field of keywords and algorithms. With plenty of companies willing to offer their SEO services, ready to push sometimes costly contracts, it can be daunting for a smaller company.
Why should we care about SEO? In this series, Cherish will take a look at the impact SEO has on businesses, public relations and the media. First up, we focus on businesses.
Why does it impact businesses?
The battle to the top of search engines has been a challenge since inception. Particularly now as there are 40,000 search queries every second on average, translating to over 3.5 billion searches per day globally. With larger, more dominant competitors who have bigger budgets, they can afford the big budget SEO services agencies. This can be hard for a smaller business to compete to win that coveted top spot but SEO can help bridge that gap if used correctly.
If your company website hasn’t been set-up with SEO in mind then it is virtually invisible to the wider world. Consider it like hosting the best party ever, but forgetting to send out the invites. What’s a great party if you can’t share it with friends? The same principle applies for SEO.
I am a business owner, what can I do?
So if you are late to the SEO party and want to get involved, consider taking the following first steps:
- Onsite SEO – This factors in what your website performs like. Does your website tell people what you do well? Is it accurate, short and punchy?
- Keywords – This is how people will find you, what they actually put into the search bar. It is easy to overdo the keywords by going for the obvious. Put on your customer’s hat and consider what they might actually be typing into the search bar
- Revise – This is an ongoing process. Put steps into place but continuously revise the situation. What is working? What isn’t working? Consider this and make changes to your SEO plan accordingly
As long as people are using search engines, there is a need for SEO. SEO plays a vital role within the business modern-day marketing mix which is much more complex than before, and cannot be ignored by companies – whether large or small. There will always be competition but if you don’t take part you won’t win the race.
Written by Holly Forrest, Consultant