Does SEO Work?

We often receive calls from business people highly uninformed about their web presence. They want to know:

Does SEO work?
How can our business get visitors and leads online?
How do we help folks searching somehow find us?
How do they know who we are, what we do, and/or where we do it?

When these business people decide to look into SEO service, it is inevitably because they realize their web presence is not visible to people that search.

Does A Website Equate To SEO?

A website with good content is a crucial part of the equation, but just having a website does not necessarily mean that anyone will visit. And while various types of website software (WordPress for instance) offer on-page SEO tools, it is only the actual use of them that is going to matter competitively.

Ultimately we must have the attention of search engines first before we can then become visible to qualified (by their search effort) consumers. Website pages MUST be optimized for search engines, but off-website signals (i.e. Google My Business)will also be necessary to rank them high. How much competition there is will factor into how many signals are necessary to become MORE competitive & rank higher for target keywords. When in panic mode we often want a resolution fast and, unfortunately, that’s NOT how SEO or search engines work. Granted some keyword targets are less competitive, but we’ve got to continuously schmooze GOOGLE to rank for our keyword targets; we’ve got to impress with the most useful content, including various on and off-website signals the search engines use to compare our businesses to the competition!

Realistic Expectations About Having Good SEO

There are many areas of SEO: you may build the most beautiful website ever, but it’s not enough. Worse, search results never stop changing (see: What is the Google Crawl?). You must execute fundamental SEO best practices including keyword-optimized content, internal page-linking, quality inbound links from other websites, quality outbound links to demonstrate supporting content, accurate listings & citations, and depending on how competitive for the keywords in a particular business discipline, quite possibly more.

Search engines are way ahead of you! They look for compliance with a set of quality guidelines and so many signals, not to mention the popularity of your content versus the competition. And popularity is not paying someone to build 1,000 backlinks anymore; that is going to be identified as spamming and do more harm than good. Actually being chosen from a set of results and then having those people spend time on your pages is an example of a signal that will improve rankings.  

Should My Business Invest in SEO?

You may be asking, “Why should I invest time or money into SEO if it’s going to take a little time to produce results?” You may decide not to implement an SEO strategy, but your serious competitors certainly will. Genuinely qualified leads are not waiting to be interrupted by an advertisement; they are actually searching for what they want AND for what you offer. No SEO and you won’t be there for them, but some of your competitors will.

If you want immediate visibility try some advertising, just know that versus SEO it is an interruption and leaves nothing. If you want to have the type of web footprint that will allow consumers to find their way to your website often, on their terms & timeline, you will need SEO. If you want something to last so more leads can find it, you need SEO. Whether you are a brick and mortar business or 100% web-based, your web presence needs to be available for the people already considering your product, your service, and/or your brand.

80% of all consumers research businesses online before every buying and so those of us who fail to implement an SEO strategy will ultimately fail to capture the most qualified consumers on the web.

Better Local SEO Services

 

Based in Monmouth County, NJ, Kinetic Knowledge is a full-service digital marketing firm offering small business SEO,  website design, website fix & troubleshooting, website host & management, social media, graphic design, content, and custom webmaster service solutions. Give us a call to learn more about our services. We can be reached at 732-722-5915 or visit us online at www.kineticknowledge.com