The key to successful small business search engine marketing, is not tapping into secret tricks or crafty shortcuts for high search rankings. It has more to do with hard work, and creating volumes of deep quality content. If business owners don’t have time to create the content themselves, they should hire an experienced expert on web content marketing. This type of campaign only works by building hundreds of original and informative web pages.
Indexing Information
The combination of building a comprehensive resource and getting indexed in local search engines such as Yelp can be very powerful. Also, a site with many pages helps with search rankings in Google and other popular search engines because they want their users to visit quality sites with incredible depth. Business owners would rather send users to high quality sites, rather than sites flooded with ads that lack useful content. The age of overblown hype is over when it comes to smart SEO. Therefore, the only way to win the game is to become an information authority.
Websites like Yelp are helpful because they are popular for both travelers and people who research their own cities for local businesses. A business can also submit their information to Yelp and create a profile that tells users the key aspects of the business, including its location and business description.
Understanding Inbound Marketing
The new direction for small business SEM is called “inbound marketing.” In contrast with outbound marketing, which is any kind of marketing that involves paying a media outlook to interrupt or dominate its content with advertising, inbound marketing has a more subtle approach to reaching and cultivating a target market. It’s about engaging with people rather than trying to pitch them products in a hard to sell fashion. Inbound marketing is about informing and entertaining potential customers, instead of directing interested people through a sales funnel.
The sales funnel begins with a website, which connects with blogs, email, newsletters and social media. Each of these online extensions becomes part of a funnel that directs users to landing pages, where they can learn more about products and then decide to make purchases. Nowhere in this process of inbound marketing are there gimmicks to trick consumers, or techniques to speed up sales. It’s an honest approach that strives to build credibility and long term relationships.
Maximizing Content
In order to be effective with small business SEM, the company will need to develop a clear plan that starts with a sitemap that summarizes the site. Search engines like sitemaps because they help provide easy navigation for users; also, search engines like blogs, which are more than trendy tricks to attract online followers. Blogs need to be personable and informative; otherwise, they tend to be ignored by the blog community.
Blogs should also be updated on a regular basis in order to sustain regular visitors. The reason blogs are so important is because they convey authority and knowledge while adding credibility to the sales funnel. Copying other blogs or writing irrelevant information without making useful points wastes time and space in the blogosphere. Talented bloggers are clever at attracting readers’ attention through storytelling, leading up to links to product pages.
SEO Evolution
Search engine optimization is an evolving craft due to constantly updating methodologies by search engines designed to reduce search rank manipulation. The key is to focus on building relevant web pages based on keywords without overusing them. Swapping links with quality websites can be helpful, but only if the real intent is to help users.
Cultura Interactive Web Design offers a variety of services including SEO and Search Engine Marketing for small businesses in Miami and Fort Lauderdale. You can learn more about our services or contact us for a personal interview.
