« Dilemma with good and bad linking tactics | Main | Being close to competition is not as bad as it seems »
What is the value of quality SEO?
By Toby | November 30, 2007
The small business sector should be paying close attention to how there website is doing throughout the whole spectrum; traffic, referrals, SERPS as well as lead conversion. Small business owners are faced with particular challenges that their larger competitors may not have and the biggest one is usually an SEO (search engine optimization) budget.
A website contributes little to no value to a company if that website does not bring in a steady stream of business. Do you ever hear business owners say “I have a website but do not know how much traffic it does” or “in this industry clients do not come from the internet”? I have. One has gone as far as said “I have a website but don’t know what the website address is”. Believe me that one drew a facial expression that absolute shock.
It is not to surprising though since many small business owners have relied upon their skilled craftsmanship, excellent service and/or referrals to really even contemplate a new way to attract consumers. That is not to say that anyone who does not have a high ranking site will eventually have many business woes. Quite the contrary, many small business owners got into business for themselves because they are good at what they do and could more money in their pocket.
But when it comes to growth and expanding business to increase revenue other means of advertising must be explored.
That is why it is imperative that a business keeps a close what on their SEO efforts. The value of SEO is very high in my opinion, not only because I do it but it also works for my clients. Just recently I noticed TWResourceGroup.com now ranks #9 on Google for the keyword Small Business Marketing, view results, which took 8 months to achieve.
The three main items to look when determining the value of SEO are: SERPs, traffic and lead conversion.
SERPs: The position a website ranks on a search engine for a particular keyword or phrase. For example, one of our clients is a in the real estate industry and they target clients in the Snohomish County Washington area. So it is important that they rank extremely well to capture all the internet traffic looking for real estate in Snohomish County.
Traffic: Statistics that show how many users, hits, time spent on site, data downloaded from a website. Traffic numbers usually correlate with the SERPs a website has. High SERPs on many terms will translate it large traffic number (usually it means that websites has excellent information relevant for keywords).
Lead Conversion: When a website uers stops being a looker and turns into a paying customer. This is the most difficult part of the equation to achieve, especially for websites that sell a service and not a product. Some success factors to increase a site’s conversion ratio are: high quality content, unobtrusively gathering clients contact info and then follow up after initial contact. Sounds easy huh? But diving into it you will quickly find it is very challenging.
So if you can master all three of things items your small business will start generating a new stream of business cost effectively. Just beware of the people selling junk SEO packages, my favorite junk SEO tactic is this: “I will submit your site to all major search engines”.
Tip: if you get a link from any site that is indexed it will submit the linked site to the search by default and usually quicker than using the search engines submission page.
So if you are looking to hire someone with SEO experience I recommend doing a lot of research on the companies that provide SEO services. Another tip: Google people who contact you soliciting services and see how well their SEO is first. If their site is junk and/or has no PR then it maybe a sign that that company is not worth using.
Topics: Do It Yourself Search Engine Optimization Strategies |