I get asked a lot “…do you do SEO?” My response is Yes! But there’s more to it.
What is SEO?
SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is a process of getting your website to rank well on search engines for specific keywords, in an effort to drive more traffic to your website. People generally do this because they are looking to attract more customers to their website and SEO sounds like a very attractive solution.
Imagine if your second-hand car business was sitting at the top of Google when someone typed in ‘cars’; that’d be amazing right? You’d probably get thousands of people coming to your site a day. The reality is that it’s not that simple or easy to achieve.
Most common mistakes
A common mistake that a lot of people make is to simply not publish any content all. Then, when they do start publishing…nothing happens.
That’s because seeing results with SEO takes time. Like 4-6 months minimum commitment amount of time. A lot of people give up long before then and consider it a wasted effort.
And while SEO takes a bit of time to be effective, if done correctly it will continue to build on itself and remain steady even if you decide to stop after it’s established.
If you’re looking for quick results, your best bet is with paid traffic i.e. Adwords or Facebook. But! As soon as you stop your ads, your traffic dries up.
Competition is the next most common mistake.
If there is high competition in your industry, or for the keywords you are looking to rank for, without careful keyword planning you may end up spending a lot of money and not getting great results.
There’s only ten spots on the first page of Google (anything after the first page has very little benefit for a business). There may be hundreds or thousands of websites trying to rank – and that’s only going to get worse with time.
How do I increase my ranking?
The best place to start is:
- review how your current site is performing
- review how you compare against your competition, and
- put in place some basic onsite optimisation on your website based on thorough keyword research.
From there you should be monitoring your keyword visibility and consider engaging in ongoing optimisation for SEO.
While SEO does take a couple months to get going, you may see some early signs that you’re on the right track if you know what you’re looking for.
If SEO is something that you’re considering, we’re happy to chat about how SEO could work for you and answer any questions you have. There is a tonne of information on SEO out there and not all of it is simple to understand or relevant to a business owner. Let us help you find your way to success online.