What is SEO

[sgmb id=”1″]

If you own a business, or ever registered a website you are well aware of the fact that you will be offered SEO services by almost everyone. Now if you are a business owner that has traditionally relied on word of mouth only, or if you just started you may be asking yourself What the hell is SEO and why does everyone try to sell it to me?

Look, I know your email is filled with people offering you SEO and other website services (heck Cloudy Zebra might have even sent you one of those emails that you never open.) Side note anything we send is worth opening haha. Also if you turn on the radio, tv, facebook or drive you will see and hear commercials, ads and billboards. Most of the ads you see and hear are for annual contracted plans that basically don’t help you. You pay a lot of money to feel like you are doing something, yes I’m talking to you Times Union, Yellowpages, and TownSquare.

Look if you want to pay Yellowpages $1200 for a crappy video no one will watch have at it. But if that’s all you want I can do that for $1100 and save you some cash. Or we could actually review all your business information and plans and create something that will actually be seen and help your company make money, not lose it.

But what exactly is SEO and why do you need it? Well SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, basically SEO done correctly helps your website, video, or product be found in the organic search results of Google. Organic search results are the results you see with out the “ad” next to them. There are 10 organic searches per page in Google and if you are searching for a local business, service or product you may also see a little slice of Google Maps with 3 listings. This area is called the Google Snack Pack, hey I don’t make up the names but that must be a fun job to have.

I don’t have to tell you how important it is to be on page 1 of Google searches, you already know the vast majority of people only look at the first page. So if your website isn’t on that page chances are you are not going to get any leads or new customers from search results. Which means you are losing a ton of money to those 10 companies that are on the first page. SEO helps get you there. There is a ton of things to do for SEO on any website, video or product. That is why I cringe when I hear this $99 or $199 a month services being offered. There is NO WAY you are going to get any meaningful increase in your online traffic at these prices, there is just too much involved period!

SEO done properly consists of all sorts of variables if you are looking for meaningful search result changes that will actually last. Each business and site will be different but some of the main things that happen during the optimizing are:

• Optimizing the words on your website
• Optimizing the pictures on your website
• Optimizing the description of the pictures on your website
• Optimizing the code in the pictures on your website
• Optimizing the headers and footers
• Optimizing the link placements to the other pages on your website
• Making sure people can find you on social media
• Providing great content
• Sharing on social media
• Having other sites recognize your site as important
• Making great videos
• Sharing great videos
• Providing valuable information to your customers, not just coupons and sales pitches.
• Optimizing the mobile portion of your website

Those are just a few of the things that need to be done when SEO is being done properly for you, and that is just the start! Most of the other things just don’t make any sense to people who aren’t in the field of internet marketing, like if the guys over at Curry Freeze started telling me how they make their homemade ice cream. Or if the crew at KLR Roofing started to tell me how to roof a house. I would understand the basic principles of what they were doing but not all the technical details of what is really involved. As a client once told me the whole world has the same mentality “everybody’s job is easy, except mine.”

So now you have a little more understanding of what is involved with internet marketing and search engine optimization and the next time you are offered services for a couple hundred bucks a month you can scratch your head and wonder how any one could actually help you grow your online presence for less than the guy at McDonald’s makes. Also beware of anyone promising a #1 ranking! It is impossible for anyone to know what Google will do tomorrow. Also if you want your rankings to stick it will take time. In a competitive market you are looking at 6-9 months to be on the first page. The beauty of doing it correctly though is once you are up in the rankings you can really scale back, and your monthly price should reflect that.

Visit this link if you want a free SEO audit of your website.