Search Engine Optimization - Climb To The Top

SEO is all about bringing your website to the highest rank possible for any given search. If you search for "oranges", or "internet service", it is safe to assume an SEO expert helped the websites listed at the top of Google to get there. Now think about this: How often do you go to the second page of search results? How often do you click on a result past the third? That is the value of SEO, we are bringing your website to a mass audience.

I specifically used the word "climb" in this article because SEO is not a walk in the park; it is a complex process that takes preparation, an expert guide (that's me!), and lots of time. One wrong move can set your ranking back months and it can be a dangerous trek. There is a general misconception that hiring someone to SEO your website will give you instant results, for the most part that is just not the case. Let me cover some basic ideas about SEO and then I'll cover some of the pitfalls.

When someone asks me to give them a quote on SEO work for their website, I put together a presentation that describes as much of my plan as possible. People are often surprised at some of the keywords I recommend to optimize their business, because at first you expect to be on top of the world.

Here is an example; you want to rank #1 for "apple pie", and with it's 673,000 monthly searches, make your millions selling an apple pie cookbook online. The problem is that you are competing with big companies like allrecipes, Food Network, and Betty Crocker. These companies have been online for a long time, and they likely have a 10+ year head start and a very large media budget. The cost of a campaign to compete with a national brand and the time commitment involved are just not feasible for the small and medium sized businesses I work for, but there is a better way.

I would take a look at that customer's cookbook and find a search term where we can see results sooner. Maybe the book recipes are healthy. The search "healthy apple pie" gets about 1,600 monthly searches, not much compared to 673,000 but what if we got that search to the top? We would see about 40% of those 1,600 people click the top result, that's 640 monthly visitors. Of those, lets say you got 2% to buy the book, you then have13 paying customers.

Thirteen customers may seem a bit disappointing, but it's only the start. That's 13 customers PER MONTH buying your cookbook, with very little, if any, work on your website after it has reached number one. Who says a website can only rank for one word? Now that you rank #1 for that keyword why not try something more ambitious? Optimizing for "easy apple pie recipe" could get you another 96 customers per month, on top of the 13, that's over 100 customers per month. Keep in mind also that we're talking about SEO here, one part of a broader campaign to bring in sales. You could also advertise on other websites, use word of mouth, or local campaigns to bring in even more revenue with your product. SEO is just so great because as soon as it is set up you only have to do a little maintenance every once in a while, and the customers you bring in are generally brand new customers who haven't seen your product.

I might be going a little bit too fast, so let me slow down a bit here. SEO is not an instant moneymaker; it takes time to move up in the rankings, depending on the keyword, it can take a couple months to a few years. Most of my recommendations take a few months to get to the top, and that can be frustrating, but to go faster could put all of my hard work into jeopardy, using tactics Google doesn't like. That's why it is important to take it slow and build ranking over time. Also keep in mind that SEO brings users to the front door(your website), but it doesn't make people want to buy, that's your website's job, and I can help with that too.

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