Thrive or Die: Why it is important for people to be able to purchase your products and services online

I had the very pleasant opportunity to be interviewed on Margo Lovett’s podcast: Her Business Her Voice, Her Conversation and we chatted about Search Engine Optimization. As I was answering her great questions about what SEO is, and why it is important I realized that many businesses are leaving money on the table by not getting their share of over 2 Trillion searches happening on Google Annually.

Search Engine Optimization describe the steps necessary to get your website compliant with Google’s Search Algorithms. In other words, when you build a website using Google’s rules Google will give you a ton of free website traffic. Well, maybe not a ton, but plenty of website traffic that can change your life and the trajectory of your company.

The way by which you make your website appealing to Google is called Search Engine Optimization. According to the American Marketing Association,

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of developing a marketing/technical plan to improve visibility within one or more search engines.

There are over 200 factors that Google is looking at, but the basics never change. You want to create content that is unique, authentic, and creative that ultimately adds value to the reader that implements the content in the language of your target consumer.

SEO is also a type of inbound marketing. According to Hubspot, inbound marketing delivers 54% more leads into a marketing funnel than traditional outbound marketing methods like billboards, flyers, tv commercials, and radio ads. In addition, inbound leads cost 61% less than outbound leads according to Search Engine Journal. According to Hubspot the most important inbound marketing channels for lead generation are, in order of popularity: Social Media, SEO, Email Marketing, Blogs, PPC, and Tradeshows. According to Google, six out of ten people would much rather watch online videos than television. Youtube is a video platform, social media network, and highly favored when it comes to getting content on Google Page 1. If you can optimize your youtube videos effectively, this is another path to Google Page 1. Youtube is one of the easiest ways to get on Google Page 1 as a part of Google’s vertical search results.

Now since you understand the business case for SEO, here are three things that you can do to boost your products and services visibility online:

1) Identify your Keywords. Precise communication is critical here. In order for your website to be visible you must use keywords and keyphrases that your target prospects and consumers are using. For instance, if you sell cornbread mix it is important that you utilize phrases that have a relatively high search volume and low competition. There are over 18,000 websites targeting the phrase “cornbread mix”. However there are 190 people searching for the answer to the question: What to make with cornbread mix? and only 1 website online that is aiming to rank for this phrase. This is a total of 2,280 searches per year. If you are ranking first organically for this low competition phrase you can push over 750 website visitors to your site annually. This is the power of researching your best keywords to understand how your target whether it is B2B or B2C is looking for you online. Understand the vernacular. Talk to your clients. Then you can weave those money making phrases into your hashtags and website copy.

2) Utilize the Free Tools Google makes available. I have heard people ask the question does a tree make a sound if it falls in a forest and no one is around? As an SEO professional I would ask, Does a website get traffic if Google doesn’t know that it is there? The answer is clearly no. There are literally trillions of searches on Google and billions of websites live on the web at any point in time. In order to be seen in the search engine that has over 80% of the search engine market share you have to utilize the paths of communication established by said organization. Google has a plethora of free tools available for marketing but the three that every business should focus on is: Google Analytics, Google Webmaster Tools, and Google My Business. These three tools are 100% FREE. Google Analytics, once you have installed your script into your website, tracks the behavior of your website visitors. When you integrate Google Webmaster Tools with Google Analytics you can begin to really gather true data on how your clients are finding you and who your target consumer really is. Data driven marketing is something all businesses no matter the size should utilize. This way you can really understand how to optimize your product and service offering, profits, and business model. You can learn more about Google Analytics and Google Webmaster tools by visiting https://marketingplatform.google.com/about/analytics/ and https://www.google.com/webmasters/ respectively.

3) Be Generous. Share your products and expertise on your social media pages and your website. I like to think about the low hanging fruit of link building and social signals as the acronym: FLIPTY. FLIPT is an acronym that stands for Facebook, Linkedin, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, and YouTube. You want to make sure that your company pages are claimed on all of these platforms AND that you share your website URLs on your company pages. It is so important for you to share your own content. Recycle and reshare. Please be generous with your website’s content. It is so important that you share this content consistently in order to move your rankings forward. Remember your company is the solution to someone’s problem and you want to make sure that you are visible so you can be found.

Zhe Scott
Proud Member of LA South Chamber and Connected Women of Influence
Is a 2nd generation technology professional offering website design, mobile app development, search engine optimization, and more.

Zhe Scott is available for one on one consultations to determine the best strategy for more visibility, credibility, and profitability online for your products and services.

Phone: 617-475-0964
Email: info@theseoqueen.net
Website: theseoqueen.net