One of the most important topics in web marketing and website development is SEO which stands for Search Engine Optimization. The overall desire is that your website will attract the attention of search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo. These search engines will rank you well enough that people searching will find your listing and your website. Once they find you, then your website will do its job and show off your amazing business, services or products and make them want to contact you to make a purchase.
- How do we get this to happen?
- Why is SEO free in some situations and super-duper expensive in others?
- With some of the DIY website builders, SEO is Free and included while if you go looking to hire a company that does only or mostly SEO they will ask for thousands of dollars a month to get you a good ranking. So why is this so fuzzy?
We’ve found that what works for SEO is having several elements that support best practices and make search engines accept your website into the fold.
Elements for a good SEO Program:
- A website with no virus
- A website that is mobile-friendly
- A website that is using current software
- A website that follows the recommended methods for keyword placement and rich content inclusive of keywords in the copy
- Fast loading site on mobile
- SEO enhancement software (places keywords and titles in the best formats)
- includes xls sitemap
- keywords and phrases
- Regular website updating such as blogs or portfolios with dynamic indexing and archiving
- A good number of inbound and outbound linking
- Proper use and set-up of Social Media Networks
- Consistent contact information
With all these elements done properly, having the right website, website technology, updating, special software and most importantly, real new content added regularly, your website will rank well. The last consideration which is what makes SEO so inconsistent is competition. Your SEO competition is not necessarily the same as your business’s local competition. In some fields, you will have not only your direct competitors to contend with but also your suppliers or any business that is also involved with what you do. For example, our roofing contractors SEO competes with Lowes, Home Depot, roofing Shingle manufactures, gutter companies and more. There are also the big national roofing companies that spend fortunes on national Google ad campaigns that push organic listings from SEO down lower on the page. SEO is a complex undertaking and requires applying techniques to an SEO program and being able to analyze the results over time and make adjustments over time to get the right ranking. Also, your ranking can change every time there is a new SEO competitor that enters the race so adjustments must be made for that too.
If your business has a lot of SEO competition, it is wise to hire a professional company to help you with reaching your goals. FREE SEO will not provide you with anything tangible. Some of the DIY solutions consider providing you with SEO by simply giving you a place-holder to type in your keywords and page titles. That is only the tip of the iceberg for REAL SEO. Technically they did provide you with some SEO but it is not the same as an SEO program that really works.