How SEO (search engine optimization) can save your online marketing campaign.

I know, only SOME people are saying we're in a recession, but for heavens sake, what does it take to just admit it?

Many local businesses are trying desperately to figure out how the current recession will be impacting their company. Some small businesses are taking a pre-emptive route and by reviewing their expenses, to see where they can cut down on spending. Unfortunately many businesses are choosing their marketing budget to be cut.

If your business has been considering cutting marketing and advertising dollars, or already has, I strongly urge you to consider putting the money still allotted towards search engine optimization (SEO) of your website. SEO is a very inexpensive form of advertising, yet highly effective for getting targeted traffic to your website (and through your website your customers will receive information on your products and services).

Let me give you 3 ways that SEO can help with marketing in a recession.

1) Today many consumers are looking for bargains and "the best buy". So, words like "discounted", "cheaper", "low prices", and "sale" attract more customers. Do you have any pages on your website marketing these phrases? The beauty of internet marketing (and websites) is that you can make changes like this by adding and/or modifying pages on your website and make them available almost immediately. Most importantly, you can display these messages in the description for the link to your website in the search engines, making people choose your site over others.

2) SEO can help your business find additional keywords to products or services you are offering that potential customers are searching for. How? A big aspect of SEO is searching for internet trends, and finding how many people a month are looking for your business's chosen keywords. In other words, what words are being used on Internet searches? Let's say your business provides local boat cruises for a variety of services. However, in the past 12 months it is revealed that there is a considerable increase for people searching for dinner cruises in your area. Your website can utilize that information, making your site more readily visible for the more searched term.

Basically, find out what your audience is looking for and then give it to them.

3) When your website is optimized, part of the ongoing maintenance from the SEO firm is analyzing the statistics from the website. This means finding what keywords the majority of the visitors coming to your site are using, how long visitors are staying on the site, which pages are being viewed the most and longest, and much more. With all this information the necessary changes can be made to your website, allowing ever continuing improvement to your site and searchablity.

Many website owners make the great mistake of believing that once they have a website and have it optimized they are done. Even more tragically some business owners think they only need a website and don't even know about SEO! I cannot begin to tell you how big of a misconception that is. The trick to a successful website is keeping it constantly updated. Websites are not brochures, so they should not be treated as such. Constant improvements will keep your website up to date and more search engine friendly (aka Google will want to rank you higher).

If you are already receiving SEO services for your web presence, contact your SEO provider to see if they are providing you with the needed services. If you are not optimized with SEO I highly suggest getting started today! Now is the time to get optimized!

Sincerely,
Gina Gray
"The Gina Gray Way"