It's Time To Take SEO Seriously

Search for your products and services in Google and see if your business is ranked in the Top 10. Go ahead, try it.

Are you there?

Is your competition?

According to Hitwise, a monitoring service which provides marketers with information and insights on their online presence, 72% of all Internet searches were conducted in Google in February 2009. Yahoo was second pulling in 17% followed by MSN Live at 5.5%.

Ask yourself:

* Is your business and its products and services being found in search engines?
* How are customers finding your website?
* Do you update your website’s content?
* What keywords best describe your business?
* Do you write articles for your website and other online publications?
* Do you write a blog?
* Do you publish your company’s press releases? If so, what is the most recent press release date?
* Are you participating in Social Media, including Facebook and Twitter?

Now, more than ever, it’s time to take the Internet seriously. If you don’t, your competition is going to leave you in the dust.

Why is search important? Because it continues to grow. More and more people are using search engines and social media methods to find the products and services they want. We search before we buy products to compare prices and read reviews. We search before we hire or retain services. We search before we apply for jobs.

Categories such as business and finance, sports, online video, travel, and social networking had double-digit increases in searches over the past year, according to Hitwise.

Customers are no longer picking up the Yellow Pages and thumbing to the lawn care section. Instead, they are search Google for “lawn care” and a geographical region (such as “lawn care Cincinnati”). People are asking their Friends in Facebook for references and recommendations or posting a “tweet” in Twitter to find the best plumber or for a recommendation on a good restaurant for a special occasion.
Search shouldn’t replace your current marketing plan, but it better be part of it.

The plan should include:

* Determining what keywords and keyword phrases best describe your business, products and services. Use free keyword research tools such as Google’s Keyword Tool (https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal) and WordTracker’s keyword suggestion tool (http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/) to generate a good list of possible keywords.

* Writing fresh content, which should include your targeted keywords. This should include page content, new articles, and press releases. You should strongly consider writing a blog.

* Updating Page Titles and other meta tag codes to reflect your targeted keywords.

* Tagging everything. This includes ALT tags for graphics, pictures, etc. Tag videos and Flash objects.

* Making sure your PDF files can be crawled by search engines. Are they text files? Or are they scanned images? Complete the Properties section for each PDF file to reflect the contents of the file.

* Starting a link building strategy. Content is king, but link building is queen. Earning quality and relevant one-way links from other websites to your website is an important part of search engine optimization. This would include inbound links from Directories; articles you’ve written for other websites; blog posts; press releases; review websites, or from happy customers who have good things to stay about your company, products and services, etc.

* Giving some serious consideration to online advertising with a Google Adwords or Yahoo (Pay-Per-Click) account to put your business on the first page of search results immediately. Target your keywords; write ads and set a monthly budget. Go slow if you’ve never tried this before. Watch your account; test and tweak often.

* Strategizing social media efforts. Should you have a business Facebook page? Should you Twitter? Participate in LinkedIn and other social media areas?

Then, lather, rinse and repeat. This is just the tip of the iceberg. You should always look for and implement website content improvements. Check your web traffic stats and search engine rankings to see if things are picking up. True search engine marketing doesn’t end. It’s an ongoing process.