We’ve all heard the pitch. “We’ll get your website to the top of Google!” We’re told that it can be done quickly, and we’re sold on the idea that SEO (search engine optimization) is a magic, elusive bullet that will get you more business. However, most times the companies selling this service aren’t being transparent about how rankings actually work.

Overall, search engines rank websites based on a good user experience; and that relies heavily on having simple foundation of good content that is well-organized. In your business, that means planning ahead and talking about what you know best: your organization and why your services/product/music/non-profit/handmade pottery can benefit your customers.

So, is SEO important? Yes. Is it the most important thing for your organization? I’d argue not.

Keeping SEO Simple

My experience with SEO started over five years ago. Throughout this time, I’ve heard several approaches from SEO/digital marketing companies that in most cases lack any real substance to make a difference. Don't get me wrong, you can spend lots of time and money on researching keywords, but unless you can dedicate a good chunk of your day to SEO and keep up with the continuous changes, I’d recommend keeping it simple.

“I’ve heard several approaches from SEO companies that in most cases lack any real substance to make a difference.”

If you want me to hurry up and get to some solutions, here you go: It all boils down to making sure your content is relevant to your customers. When you write about your products/services on your website, do so primarily with your customers in mind, not the search engines.

A Few Simple Starting Points for SEO

• Ask your customers, friends, family or literally anyone what they would search to find out about your organization.

• Write down those answers, look for themes, and think about how you can naturally incorporate those phrases or words into the content on your website.

• If you can’t find anyone to ask, put yourself in the shoes of a user. Don’t forget that you are an active user of search engines — think what you would search to find a organization or service you like.

• Enter those themes/phrases in a search engine and see what happens. Take note of which websites results come up, explore the content on those first few sites, see what the search engine is trying to auto-fill for you, and see what the “related searches” suggest (you can most likely find these at the bottom of the page).

• Focus on a few keywords/content pieces that represent your organization, rather than writing a whole bunch of random, disorganized pieces. This keeps your content focused and gives you a better chance of turning your website traffic into tangible business.

• If you’re trying to go after general terms with high MSV (monthly search volume), you’ll probably be fighting an uphill battle with competitors that have the resources to fully commit to SEO. I’d recommend focusing on what are known as ‘long-tail’ keywords...they’re more specific to your audience and typically have less competition. Volume is typically lower, but it’s almost always better.

Other Ramblings on SEO

For those of you who wanted to stick around for more, thank you for your patience and please bear with me. First and foremost, you need to get people interested in you or know who you are. The “you” I’m referencing can be your organization, services, you as an owner, or any combination of those. And to go along with that, you need to have relevant content that users are trying to seek out. If you don’t have those things, then you’re going to have a hard time optimizing your site.

Are you trying to reach customers locally, nationally, or both?

Some of the aforementioned lacking SEO strategy approaches don’t do a good job explaining that geographical scope needs to be taken into account when doing keyword research. To sound like every prescription commercial ever, “results may vary.”

Especially when serving up results, search engines are taking into account what a person has searched lately, where the potential customer is located, and a whole mess of other things. Bottom line: All of this should factor into your keyword strategy, but can be difficult to get accurate information on unless you have a lot of time and money to buy SEO tools. Which is why I suggested above to use what you do have access to — your existing customers.

“So you can obsess over rankings that can change from day-to-day, but your time would be better spent writing a post about a frequently asked question, something that makes your organization different, or explaining a problem you solved for a customer.”

Things get tricky when you’re trying to see if your rank is improving.

Did you know that your search engine is trying to make your life easier? Now, this is normally a good thing, but it can also skew your results when you’re trying to look at your rankings because it remembers your searching habits.

I recommend searching in a private or incognito browsing window to see your results more accurately. However, sometimes this doesn’t even provide the best results. And it’s also common that free SEO tools don’t offer a good explanation into your ranking (and don’t break down the local vs. national thing I talked about a bit ago).

So you can obsess over rankings that can change from day-to-day, but your time would be better spent writing a post about a frequently asked question, something that makes your organization different, or explaining a problem you solved for a customer.

Technically speaking

Finally, there’s technical stuff you can do to positively impact your SEO, but frankly, unless you have a techie that’s your friend or you work with someone who has the skills and know-how, you probably won't be able to complete most of that yourself. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it, but it’s a reality that I want you to be aware of. Thankfully one of the Four Peas just happens to be one of those skilled people and will prepare a list of technical SEO factors that can make a difference on your site. Make sure to watch for our next email to get that list.

Final Thoughts

If this has felt like a mess of thoughts coming your way, you’re not wrong. That’s kind of my style sometimes, especially if I’m passionate about something. After watching people trying to sell SEO as a “magic bullet” without discussing the several factors that go into it, I wanted to make sure you, my dear reader, were at least aware of some of the complexities. Hopefully you’ll be better prepared when you try to tackle it on your own or so you can ask more informed questions to a potential SEO consultant you hire.

To sum it up, don’t believe someone who says they can just optimize your site for you quickly and guarantee that you’ll rank high on Google. If you want to improve the chance of potential customers finding your site through search engines, remember to keep it simple and work with what you know.