What is SEO and what can an SEO agency do for my business?
Chris Mulvaney is the CEO of CMDS. I make things... I’m the creative entrepreneur with passion for (re)making brands and inventing solutions to problems no one knows exist.
With more and more business owners looking for new ways to generate revenue in our difficult economy, many of them are paying more attention to online marketing strategies that they simply didn’t have the time or the inclination to learn about before. Although SEO has been a standard practice for some time, many business owners are just beginning to ask, What is SEO and what can it do for my business?
SEO is search engine optimization — the process of analyzing your website and adding keywords, links, and other information to improve your search engine page rankings and increase your traffic.
SEO starts with identifying and analyzing keywords based on volume, relevance, your goals for your site and what your competition is doing. One way to begin is to consider what your potential customers are searching for online.
For instance, if your business a bakery specializing in wedding cakes, then “wedding cake, ” “wedding cakes, ” “wedding cake bakeries, ” and “wedding cake bakery ” might all be phrases that a potential customer would type into a search engine to find your store. Some of your potential customers might search on more specific terms, targeting geography, like “New Jersey wedding cake bakery, ” or color and style, i.e. “pink wedding cake. ” These search terms, called keywords and keyphrases, should appear throughout your site’s content, as well as in the meta data and titles of your pages, advise SEO agencies.
In addition to relevant keywords, inbound links are important in search engine optimization, say SEO agencies. Creating a links page on your site and exchanging reciprocal links with quality sites related to your business is a sound search engine optimization strategy; doing link exchanges with sites containing unrelated or disreputable information is not. Purchasing listings in industry related professional directories is another way to link to reputable sites and be found by more potential clients.
When done correctly, search engine optimization is a multi-layered and ongoing process that can generate significant results. An SEO agency experienced in SEO standards and techniques can help you drive traffic to your website and generate qualified leads for your business.