Search engine optimization is the process of optimizing your website and website pages, as well as managing factors outside of your website (i.e off-site factors), to acheive top rankings or positioning at Google, or other search engines, on a search engine results page. As a result of this increased online visibility, which shows up in people’s browsers when they are searching, you get more QUALITY traffic to your website, increase your brand/company awareness, more effectively compete in the marketplace, and ultimately increase inquiries and sales (i.e. conversion).
SEO is not a “set it and forget it” type thing. Not if you want to get your website and pages top ranked.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a process similar to building a multi-tiered wedding cake. There is ongoing SEO, that sits on top of advanced SEO techniques, which are put on top of basic search engine optimization – or the “fundamentals.” You can’t get a top ranked website without building one layer at a time. And like the best wedding cakes, it takes the right “ingredients,” expertise, time, and patience.
What makes a great website? A lot of things, but the most important thing is - results. Sure, it should be professional looking, not amatuerish, it should be a custom design, not a template, and it has to compare favorably against a competitor. But even with all those things, it still has do produce results. When I review websites, or work with Dan Harrington on a new website design, it’s important that the design focuses on conversion and turning a website visitor into some form of action - an inquiry or a sale.
Properly taking the up-front time to plan a website, and develop an overall Internet marketing strategy, is critical to its success. A few years back things were different. Today, you can’t just “build a website” and expect to get good – if any – reasonable results. I’ve seen this mistake made hundreds of times. Doing it right will save time and money. Doing it wrong will cost you time and immeasurable lost sales opportunities.
