With so much hype around a three letter acronym, we agree that SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) can be beneficial to your online business. BUT…it’s not the golden ticket that online spruikers portray it to be. Many online companies use short term tactics to encourage fast results that can actually hurt your business in the long run.
How can it hurt my business?
What they essentially do is drive traffic to your website through means that Google, or other engines, don’t necessarily approve. It gets you the results you think you’re after – traffic to your website – but this doesn’t mean it’s the right traffic that will convert into lifetime advocates or even customers. This is simply untargeted traffic that has been sent to push up your website stats.
So what should I do?
There are quite a few ways that you can use increase traffic to your website without paying someone else to do it for you. See our articles Understanding How Your Website Converts Customers and 3 Traffic Sources You Should Know About. These will give you a basic understanding of where you should start and a good understanding of your customers.
I still don’t know what to do
That’s ok! Lots of people feel overwhelmed at this point, especially given the number of ways you can approach it. SEO is simply another tool to help drive business to your website. The key is making sure that the tactics you are using are beneficial to your target audience. See our Most Common SEO Mistakes blog post to help you avoid some common pitfalls and then continue below.
The starting point
A common starting point is to begin posting quality, relevant and useful blog posts to your potential customers. Information has always been a tradable commodity. But in giving it away for free by sharing your knowledge, people begin to see you as a valuable resource, or a trustworthy expert on the topic.
Next, you should try these:
- Brainstorm blog post ideas and create a series of themes or ongoing posts that explore a topic over several posts.
- Organise yourself! Set up a schedule of your posts that go live regularly so your customers can see that you are serious about providing them with relevant information.
- Make sure you share these on the social media platforms your business is engaged in. Maybe even pay for a promoted post on Facebook to widen your reach with one of your most popular posts.
Once you have your website and business churning out quality posts, you should start to see a difference in the way Google, and the other engines, views your website. This is not a quick fix! You will not see results overnight and it may be months before you see a move in page ranking in the search engines. BUT, you should persevere! Because nothing worthwhile ever comes easy, and your business needs to show it is willing to engage with its customer base outside of a business sale.
Happy blogging!