Well, recently when hiking the mountains in the Pacific Northwest to practice photography with my entrepreneur friends, the impression I received was that for them in order to make the company website popular they have to buy links, ask for reviews (sometimes even buy them), and work hard by posting fresh content. Well this last part they got right at least. But buying backlinks, and hiring 3rd party reviews from people that they have never come to conduct business with simply will not work, and will cost money. So, what to do? What do I tell them? Read on.
Let me start by saying that whatever path or combination of online marketing strategies you choose their results will take time. Unless you are willing to pay for every single click you receive that links to your website, which accumulates to fortune very quickly, white-hat techniques will require work, dedication, perseverance, and patience. A lot of patience. Months to be more specific. But when you start seeing results, when you have all natural organic search engine results pointing to your website and your analytics report showing a substantial increase in traffic, and when you start receiving more subscribers to your online email campaign, the feeling is priceless. You got there! You finally did it! The promised land is here!
SEO stands for search engine optimization. The term “search” because people need something, and that something is the value you should be looking to deliver. “Engine” refers to the mechanics of how the data is received, analyzed and presented. “Optimization” is where you (or me) come in, because it deals with how the data you wish to present is organized in adequate manner so that the engine can process and deliver it. Black-hat techniques although efficient in the short-run will have long-term consequences as search engines penalize websites for trying to trick their systems.
Here’s how to do it: irresistible content, focusing on catering to the right crowd, putting the message out there, analyzing results through traffic and leads statistics and doing it all over again. I will go in a little more detail on each topic.
What better way to bring visitors and keep them interested in what you have to offer than by creating high quality content? When it comes to online marketing, high quality content involves 3 areas: the written text that corresponds to a visitor’s search intent, the accessibility of the written content via responsive layouts that are both desktop and mobile friendly, and the fast delivery of the written content as visitors are often impatient if a website takes too long to load.
Learn about the Pareto principle, also known as the 80/20 rule. In sum, it explains how 80% of the revenues come from 20% of the customers, while another 20% account for 80% of problems. For every minute spent putting out fires, the business needs to spend 4 minutes nurturing the most profitable customers. In online marketing, this means that you will want to retain those valuable 20%, and to do that you need to better understand what they are receiving from you. Here is where a well-developed and strategic newsletter campaign comes handy.
Sharing is caring, and when it comes to website content it’s all about making sure that as many people as possible understand your website exists. Sounds simple, but it takes a lot of caring and dedication, day in and day out to make this a reality. One quick tip: whatever you post on your website, be sure to post at your favorite social media networks.
Wipe your forehead, clean the sweat off, and be proud of all your hard work. Now it is time to look at the metrics. Has traffic increased? Where do they come from? Are you receiving more leads? This is where you learn what is working and what isn’t so take the time and familiarize yourself with the Google Analytics dashboard.
Yes, repeat. Search Engine Optimization is an ongoing, never-ending job, that should be part of your daily routine. Perseverance is the #1 rule. The question to be asked here is whether your business is fit to do conduct its own online marketing or if it makes more sense to outsource to professionals. By the way, we are these professionals. Count on us for webmaster and digital marketing services.
