With the Internet being so vast, to enable your business to stand out from the crowd you have to look at search engine Optimization (SEO). It is just not good enough to have a business and hopes that people will come to you, even large companies rely on being found via organic search engines i.e.: Google, Yahoo.
SEO is here to help
With this in mind, many people are continuously struggling to be noticed. Online sites are growing everywhere and every day. So how can your business get past the millions of other businesses and eventually get noticed by your target audience?
Search engine optimization aims to achieve the goal of getting more visitors to your place of business by helping it get higher rankings in the search engines. This simply means that search engine optimization’s goal is to make relevant sites appear on the first pages, for the user’s search term.
How many page results do you look at when using search engines?
You use search engines to find solutions to your problems, tell me how often do you go past page 3 of the search engines? I guess not very often, why because more than likely the 1st or 2nd page helps you solve your problem. This is why you need to work to get your business to appear on the 1st or at best 2nd page of the search engines for your chosen keywords.
The search engines spiders are the friendly ones, not the creepy ones 🙂
The search engines evaluate sites by using what they call “spiders.” These programs scan sites and collect information about them. They then collate this information and pass it on to the search engine. This area is primarily the main arena of search engine optimization. It utilizes a set of methods to be able to get search engines to list the site in the search results.
SEO may seem a daunting task to do, many avoid it, try to turn a blind eye to it or use the excuse of “I will do it later”. If you prefer your potential customers to go to other businesses then continue to avoid the matter. I am not going to lie this is something you need to keep on top of. You don’t have a team of people working for you; nevertheless, this is not a bad thing, knowing your business through and through is a professional advantage to you.
Get used to SEO and you will love the results
You have total control over how your business flows and interacts with organic search engine users and that in itself is a powerful place to be. When you have done the work and you start, appearing on either page 1, 2, or 3 of the search engines for your chosen keywords you will feel proud because you did it.
Even if you don’t appear on those pages just yet, but start to receive organic traffic to your site, that too is a brucey bonus because it shows you are on the right track. You may already have mastered the art of SEO on your site, if so good on you and you know that if you don’t stay on top of your SEO, you will see your site listing start to drop. Don’t assume you will stay where you are forever without working for it. Like I said even big companies have to work for it, it’s just that they have many hands doing the work.
My SEO experience
When I started my creative business, I had 3 main competitors that I kept my eye on at all times. These businesses had been trading online for between 4+ years before I came on the scene. These to me were the ones I had to get on the same level with. I had to get my business on the same search pages as these business owners (which was page one) or I would not have a chance of denting their organic customer traffic. If your business is on page 4 or further then you are losing vital organic traffic, which is FREE might I add.
After I applied various techniques and methods, which I learned along the way I positioned my business on the first page of Google bouncing between position 3 and 6 but I was happy being on page 1 where my competitors sat. What totally shocked me was that I was at page 1 position 1 for a very broad keyword on Yahoo search engine. It took me a total of 6ish months to get there, and I continue to work on my SEO to allow my business to stay there.
Know what you sell and how others see it
The first steps to using SEO in your business is to understand what your products are to your customers and not to you. You already know your products but your target customers may look at your products totally different and it’s this difference that will help you stand out from the crowd.
For example, if you create knitted jumpers, as you can guess there are many knitted jumpers so you have to find your difference. This may be the type of yarn you use, the technique you use to create your items, the colours you use, the person who will wear it etc..
Time to get used to using Google keywords tool and find your first few keywords for your products. Using your main item’s description, go over and use Google keyword tool to show you what other related keywords are available. This will also help you to draw customers to your site. Register 1st to use Google keywords because, the results differ when you are not logged in, strange but true.
Update 2013:
To use Google Keyword Tool which has now been renamed the Keyword Planner, you MUST sign up to Google Adwords. I know a little confusing but the keyword planner is part of Google Adwords service. You will not need to use AdWords at all to use the keyword planner.
