The best businesses in the world all share one characteristic – they know that if their webpages get listed low in search engines, no one will find them when they’re searching. That’s where SEO comes in. Every business is doing their best to pinch pennies where they can, but there are some expenditures are worth every dime. It will take some budgeting, but you’ll know you’ve helped people find you with every dollar spent.
What is SEO?
SEO is the practice of strategically using keywords, metadata, links, and content to convince search engines that your webpage is credible and authoritative, and that it deserves to be listed high up in search engine rankings.
Search engines work hard to get the best content to the people searching for specific terms, and they penalize and even eliminate spammers or SEO cheats who use shady techniques such as keyword stuffing. A strong SEO strategy can get good webpages great rankings.
Why SEO?
It is imperative that your website be listed high in the ranking for as many different searches as possible. For example, if you sell brake pads in Toledo, OH, a good SEO strategy will put your website at or near the top if someone enters the search string “brake pads toledo oh,” “brake pads ohio,” “brake pads Toledo,” or just “brake pads.”
Study after study shows that the overwhelming majority of people click the very first link, fewer than half click the second, and very few click anything after that. Your brand, company, product, staff, and service might be the best in the industry. If no one can find your website when they search for subject matter similar to what’s on it, then you’re losing sales and customers with every Google search.
How to Get Good SEO
The three ways to back up your company with an SEO strategy are to hire someone, do it yourself, or some combination of the two. Unless you’re confident that you can do everything in house, you may have to hire an SEO service. This will require some budgeting and research, which go hand in hand. The more research you do, the less budget you’ll need.
Learn a Little
Whether you want to spend less or control more of your SEO package, education is key. SEO is complicated and constantly changing; expertise is hard to come by. But essentially anyone can grasp the basics with a minimal time and zero money investment such as this one.
With a rudimentary understanding of SEO, you’ll not only be able to handle the lion’s share of the work (thereby alleviating the need to pay someone to do more than they should need to), but you’ll be much less likely to be sold something you don’t need.
Budgeting
Budgeting for SEO is similar to budgeting for anything else at a business or corporation. You must first identify how much service you want and/or need, and how much money it will require. By using office software like Mint or Outright, you can easily see what’s going in, what’s coming out, and how to pinch from several places to establish an SEO budget category.
SEO can make a good business with a good website perform seem like a great business with an unbelievable website. It is one of the few services that actually pays for itself by attracting new traffic and revenue to your site. Budgeting takes discipline, focus, and commitment, but you want a good, strong SEO strategy, and nothing good or strong is ever free.
Andrew Lisa is a freelance writer living in Los Angeles. He writes about SEO and profiles business budget tools.