Search engine optimization is one of the most important things that any business can do for their web efforts. The simple reason is, as noted before, local search is quickly moving away from the yellow pages and onto the net in the form of web searches on Google, Bing, Yahoo! and more. If your business isnaEUR(TM)t showing up prominently in those local searches, then youaEUR(TM)re missing out big time. ThataEUR(TM)s what search engine optimization (SEO) is all about; getting your site to come up as highly as possible in searches whether they be local or general.
Without a targeted SEO strategy, you might get lucky and end up with a good position in the search engine results pages (SERPs), but the odds are, youaEUR(TM)ll end up buried deep down on the third, fourth, fifth or twentieth page. That means you might as well not be there at all. But with carefully done SEO, youaEUR(TM)ll have a much, much better chance of showing up on the first page, and if youaEUR(TM)re really good (and a bit lucky on top of that), you might even get that coveted first overall spot!
Search engine optimization revolves around many aspects both on-page and off-page but, nothing is more important than making your site as friendly as possible to search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MicrosoftaEUR(TM)s new Bing search engine. These search engines rank and display the sites you see on any given search results page using incredibly complicated algorithms, proprietary to each search engine, designed to ensure that the best and most valid results possible show up first. These algorithms are so complicated in fact, and so secret, that no one outside of the tech people at the respective companies actually knows exactly how they work. What we do know though, is parts of the algorithms. Little bits and pieces of what those algorithms want to see in order to rank sites as highly as possible. These areas are what SEO focuses on. Areas that website owners can specifically target in order to give their site the best shot possible at coming up on top.
These areas are many and the list of different things you can do to optimize your site for search are long and ever changing (one reason itaEUR(TM)s very important to constantly maintain your SEO efforts to make sure theyaEUR(TM)re up to date). They boil down at the most basic level to two different types of SEO. Like I mentioned before, there is on-page SEO, and off-page SEO.
Simply enough, on-page SEO is SEO work done on your actual site, targeting elements within the site like the code, the text, optimized images, and the like. This is the most basic and probably one of the most needlessly ignored areas of SEO. Essentially there is no excuse for any website, especially any business website, to not have good on-page SEO, but almost none do (meaning if yours does, youaEUR(TM)ve got an edge on your competition!)
Off-page SEO is work done on other sites.
Wait, what? Why the heck would doing work on someone elseaEUR(TM)s site help your search rankings?
Well, the reason is that one of the ways search engines rank your site is by taking into account what others are saying about you, so to speak. Essentially, the way it works is that when another site puts up a link to your site, the search engines take that to mean that there must be something good on your site to deserve that link, and itaEUR(TM)s sort of like a point in your favor. So the more links you have on other websites across the net, the better youaEUR(TM)ll look in the eyes of search engines. Enter off-page SEO, which essentially comes down to consistently and strategically building those links on other similar content sites around the web.
Sounds easy enough right?
Build a million links and youaEUR(TM)ll dominate the search engines! Right? Right?
Unfortunately, it doesnaEUR(TM)t quite work that way. You see people have tried that, specifically, spammers and garbage websites tried that, building thousands of links on things called aEUR~link farmsaEUR(TM). The thing is, Google isnaEUR(TM)t stupid. In fact theyaEUR(TM)re very smart. ThataEUR(TM)s why they essentially own the web and anything to do with it now. In fact, one of the founders of Google once said that they are the police, judge, jury and appeals court!!
So what Google (and most major search engines) do, is to consider the quality of a link when factoring it into a siteaEUR(TM)s search ranking. What that means is that a link from CNN or from The New York Times of from the United States Government is worth a lot more than a link from MannyaEUR(TM)s Barbeque Sauce Blog or IsntMyCatCute.com
This is the tricky part.
Everybody and their brother wants to get links from these high quality sites, or aEUR~authority sitesaEUR(TM) as theyaEUR(TM)re often called. And so these sites donaEUR(TM)t just give out links. Well, actually they do, but not the kind you want for SEO.
Ugh, now there are different types of links?
You betcha!
The internet runs on links, theyaEUR(TM)re everywhere, and for the millions of sites out there, there are millions more links floating around on them. And so the guys who run the complicated innards of the internet invented what are known as do-follow and no-follow links. Simply enough, a do-follow link counts for search engine rankings, and a no-follow link doesnaEUR(TM)t. So when most of the really good sites give out links, theyaEUR(TM)re no-follow, and they absolutely donaEUR(TM)t matter for a thing as far as search ranking goes. TheyaEUR(TM)re still good because any link that allows a person to find your site is a good thing, but as far as SEO goes, theyaEUR(TM)re not worth the font theyaEUR(TM)re written in.
So to be successful in off-page SEO, you need to find strong, high quality links, from authority sites that the search engines give a lot of weight to, that are also do-follow. ItaEUR(TM)s doable, but definitely not easy. Then add to that all the on-page SEO factors like page titles, header tags, keywords, etc., and youaEUR(TM)ve got quite a full plate. The good news though is that if you get the mix right, you can get your sites ranking in good spots on search results pages. In fact you can even choose the specific terms you optimize your site for to ensure that youaEUR(TM)re showing up properly in the right searches to maximize your sites effectiveness. This is where the aEURoelocalaEUR? vs. aEURoeglobalaEUR? thing comes into play. When targeting the key phrases you want to optimize your site for (key phrases basically just means aEURoewhat people type into GoogleaEUR?) you need to decide whether or not you want to target large, broad key phrases, or more local, more specific key phrases. For instance, do you optimize your site for the search term aEURoeenvironmental insuranceaEUR?, or for the search term aEUR~Illinois Broker Covering Environmental Insurance?
At first this might seem like an obvious choice; go big or go home, right? The broader search term aEURoeenvironmental insuranceaEUR? will deliver way more traffic, so go for that one! Well the problem with that is that while, yes, the term aEURoeenvironmental insuranceaEUR? almost certainly gets a great deal more searches than the other term, itaEUR(TM)s also extremely competitive. With SEO, the more generic a search phrase is, the more competition there will be, and for really broad search terms, the sites sitting at the tops of those rankings are going to be extremely, extremely hard to knock off.
For instance, letaEUR(TM)s say you own a small independent agency in Iowa and you want to do some SEO for your website. You decide to target the term aEURoecasualty insuranceaEUR?. After all, itaEUR(TM)ll get a ton of searches! Unfortunately, the websites sitting at the top of the search results for aEURoecasualty insuranceaEUR? belong to State Farm, Allstate, Ohio Casualty, ISO, California Casualty and the like. See the problem?
I donaEUR(TM)t care how hard you try, you are not going to knock off State Farm and Allstate from the top of the rankings with the site for your small local agency. Well, itaEUR(TM)s possible I suppose, but absolutely not worth the ridiculous amount of effort and money it would take. So instead of targeting such a ridiculously competitive phrase, you target a more specific, more local phrase. You absolutely wonaEUR(TM)t get as much traffic, but the traffic the search term does get will be far more targeted.
Ah, did I say targeting? Targeting, the marketers best friend! Remember, youaEUR(TM)re a small independent agency in Iowa. Why do you want someone in Georgia to come to your website? Or someone in France? (Unless you have a specific program that would benefit them, which weaEUR(TM)ll get to in another chapter)
ThataEUR(TM)s exactly what will happen if you somehow succeed in making the first page for the term aEURoecasualty insuranceaEUR?. So forget that one and instead letaEUR(TM)s target aEURoeIowa Independent Casualty AgencyaEUR?. Now thereaEUR(TM)s a search phrase you can dig into! ItaEUR(TM)s far less competitive, meaning itaEUR(TM)s very realistic to think you can get into the top of the rankings. Not only that, but now you know that the people finding your site through Google are people looking specifically for what you provide.
Now youaEUR(TM)re marketing to people looking for an independent agent in Iowa. Not people looking for a large broker in Florida. Remember what we said way back about marketing only to people who want to see your marketing messages and not wasting your time on those that donaEUR(TM)t? This is a perfect example and thataEUR(TM)s exactly why targeting more specific key phrases (what are often known as aEUR~long tail key phrasesaEUR(TM)) is of so much value.
Firstly because it qualifies your leads much better, and secondly because it ensures that the people who end up finding your site are the people who want to find what your site has to offer. Someone who doesnaEUR(TM)t want what youaEUR(TM)re hawking will leave your site before it even finishes loading, so why waste time and money marketing to them? Focusing on long tail key phrases and local search strings lets you laser focus your marketing, which ultimately makes it more effective.
LetaEUR(TM)s look at the facts, Americans conduct 22.7 billion online searches a month and worldwide, we type into a search box monthly 131 billion times. ThataEUR(TM)s 29 million searches per minute. ItaEUR(TM)s safe to say that weaEUR(TM)ve become a searching culture. As a business owner trying to grow their business you must think about your business in a new way, to better connect with your customers through search, and to weave the value that search provides into all aspects of your organization.
Any reader that understands the concept of how and what people are searching for has a fairly unique opportunity to connect with their potential customers.
Never before have we had access to such remarkable amounts of data about potential customers. We know what they search for (and what they donaEUR(TM)t). We know how they shop and how they buy. We can even find out where they look on a page. Businesses spend such significant amounts of time and money on market research, focus groups, and usability studies, yet so many fail to augment this information with the abundance of free data available from those 113 billion searches a month!!
We donaEUR(TM)t have to look farther than the various methods of print advertising to see how consumer behavior has changed. The advertising industry spent years trying to get readers to return to their old behaviors of expecting the newspaper, magazine, trade publication or whatever in their mailbox every day, and reading the stories as they were laid out in print. But those readers had moved on to searching online for news on topics of interest and getting that information in real time rather than a days or a month late.
Similarly, companies have to adapt and evolve with their customers instead of attempting to get their customers to return to their old ways.
In an effort to provide any reader of this article with an idea of all that IaEUR(TM)m talking about what I'd like to do is provide you with a free, comprehensive analysis and consultation of your online marketing efforts.
I will show you where you are now with your website, where potential customers are looking for what they offer online, the steps you can take to reach your potential customers online, and help you discover how much untapped, new-found business is out there looking for what you have to offer on the internet.
Normally this is a $497 report and consultation, but because the connection is coming from an Agent of America reader, I want to give you something valuable that they can put to use in your business.
John McGovern is currently the Managing Partner of AOA Market Solutions and Founder of an Internet & Marketing firm based in Central NJ. Having extensive experience in identifying; designing and implementing risk management solutions for businesses, he now focuses his attention assisting businesses to strategically manage their business in an online environment. Highly regarded for consistently creating business solutions for brokerage firms in the industry, he also helps those companies develop strategic business development & marketing plans to grow specialty niches into their firm. Mr. McGovern can be reached at 732-523-1456 and at johnmcgovern@agentsofamerica.org
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