If you’re a small business owner who has invested time, effort and money in a website to be a shop window for your enterprise, you may be disappointed to find it doesn’t immediately start drawing in customers.
Don’t be disheartened. Websites don’t promote themselves. There are more than 1.5-billion websites on the world wide web. If you want your site to stand out from the crowd and rank at the top of the search engine results for relevant keyword searches in your business location, you may need some professional help.
SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is, in effect, an ongoing process for marketing your website, making it attractive to the search engines, and thereby getting it noticed by potential customers. Once you’ve got them on your site SEO strategies can be taken even further, making sure site visitors are converted into customers.
Whether you’re a plumber in Trowbridge or an antique dealer in Bath you need to get your website seen at the top of the search results when people go online and use search terms to look for businesses in your field and your area.
The Science of SEO
This is where myself, and the Dentons Digital SEO team, can step in to make sure your website hits the high spots, increasing your traffic and thereby your leads and sales. We are experts at ensuring your website is designed with maximising conversions in mind.
SEO may not be “rocket science” – but it IS a science that makes use of a variety of what we call “off-page” and “on-page” tactics and strategies. Each site and business requires bespoke SEO initiatives to optimise it, and an SEO campaign is tailored using a number of complex software tools and analytics.
On Page and Off Page SEO factors work in tandem to optimise a site so that it is recognised and evaluated favourably by search engine algorithms. On Page measures that are taken to improve rankings include things like improving the quality and quantity of content and indentifying and incorporating relevant keywords, adding correct title tags and image alt texts.
Off Page SEO focuses on increasing the authority of your domain and is dependent mainly on obtaining backlinks from other worthy websites.
Reaping the Benefits of SEO
Increased business and sales aren’t the only benefits of SEO. There are numerous others too … let’s look at just a few:
- An effective SEO strategy saves advertising costs, because SEO is as good as paid advertising, if not better.
- SEO works for you long term and 24/7 – it promotes your business around the clock.
- A high ranking on the search engines increases the trust factor and credibility of your business – when people see you at the top of the list they’ll believe in you.
- SEO increases brand awareness. Your name will become familiar to people searching for your services, and even if they don’t need you straight away, they’ll no doubt come back and click on your site in the near future.
- Investing in SEO makes your website marvellously measurable, which helps with valuable information that you can use in all sorts of ways.
- Your optimised website will give your competitors – even larger ones- a run for their money! If you aren’t using SEO you’ve already lost the race.
- SEO increases the value of your business – a strong search ranking is a valuable intangible asset.
- Good SEO has a knock-on effect in increasing your social media followers, blog traffic and newsletter subscribers.
- A good SEO strategy will result in a more relevant, secure and faster website, which in turn will improve the UX (user experience) of the site.
SEO is undoubtedly a smart marketing investment for the long term, and one you can’t afford not to make.
It costs nothing to talk to Dentons Digital about SEO – in fact we offer a free no-obligation SEO audit of your business website so you’ll know exactly where improvements should be made. Just give us a call on 01373 580126 or email info@dentonsdigital.com.
