11/16/2022
๐๐ฏ๐๐ซ๐ฒ๐ญ๐ก๐ข๐ง๐ ๐๐ฆ๐๐ฅ๐ฅ ๐๐ฎ๐ฌ๐ข๐ง๐๐ฌ๐ฌ ๐๐ฐ๐ง๐๐ซ๐ฌ ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐จ ๐๐ง๐จ๐ฐ ๐๐๐จ๐ฎ๐ญ ๐๐๐
Picture this:
You are the owner of a busy salon. Two minutes into your first break of the day your phone starts ringing. Assuming the caller is attempting to book your last available appointment of the day you answer the phone.
Instead of an eager customer on the line you hear โHello, I am calling you from Google today and Iโd like to guarantee you the #1 rank on our websiteโ or some other terrible pitch from a slick salesman.
First of all, Google is a huge corporation and will NEVER call your small business (unless you are paying them for ads).
But, moving on, many small business owners are still unsure exactly what SEO is, how to determine if it can help their business, or who to trust to help them with their efforts.
So, as someone who has been doing SEO since before it was even called that and is passionate about improving its reputation as a valuable tool, I want to offer myself as a resource to the local community for any questions you may have about it or how it pertains to your specific small business. I also want to explain, very generally, everything a small business owner needs to know about SEO:
What is SEO? Wikipedia defines SEO, or search engine optimization this way: โ...the process of improving the quality and quantity of website traffic to a website or a web page from search engines.โ
Thatโs a pretty good definition. But I can simplify it further: ๐๐๐ ๐ก๐๐ฅ๐ฉ๐ฌ ๐ฉ๐จ๐ญ๐๐ง๐ญ๐ข๐๐ฅ ๐๐ฎ๐ฌ๐ญ๐จ๐ฆ๐๐ซ๐ฌ ๐๐ข๐ง๐ ๐ฒ๐จ๐ฎ ๐ฐ๐ก๐๐ง ๐ญ๐ก๐๐ฒ ๐๐ซ๐ ๐ฅ๐จ๐จ๐ค๐ข๐ง๐ ๐๐จ๐ซ ๐๐ฎ๐ฌ๐ข๐ง๐๐ฌ๐ฌ๐๐ฌ ๐ฅ๐ข๐ค๐ ๐ฒ๐จ๐ฎ๐ซ๐ฌ.
You do not need an SEO guru to perform a self evaluation of your websiteโs SEO. For starters, simply type your business name into a search engine (most people use Google). If you are not showing up for your business name it is an indication that your SEO needs urgent attention.
If your website shows up that means you, or maybe an employee or contractor, have likely done some basic SEO by utilizing meta tags or possibly building a Google Business profile. So letโs look a little deeper.
Start with a list of 3-5 terms a customer might enter into a search engine to find a business like yours. If you are a bike shop in Ventura, start with a term like โVentura Bike Shopโ or if you are a bakery in Camarillo start with โCamarillo Bakery.โ Make a note of where on the page, if at all, your website shows up for the 3-5 keywords.
If you see your competitors showing up here instead of your business that means your website and online presence likely need some improvements in order to better compete.
Maybe your business has the basics covered and currently shows up in those initial searches you did. Thatโs great! But there is always room for improvement, right! The next step could be getting multiple pages on your site to show up in the same result, ranking one of your Youtube Videos for a keyword, ensuring visibility in the embedded map, or expanding into additional keywords. Back to the previous examples, the bike shop may want to rank for โbest bike shop in Venturaโ or the bakery might want to rank for โWedding Cakes Camarilloโ for example.
If you are going to invest in SEO you need to understand how to measure results. Letโs say you sell a $500 service; maybe a gutter cleaning. After doing some research you can see there are over 100 people a month looking for gutter clearing services in Ventura. Thatโs potentially $50,000 in revenue so it would make sense to invest $1,000 a month to have your business be found by those potential customers.
But how do you know itโs working?
First you need to look at organic traffic to your website. Organic traffic is simply unpaid traffic, most of which is coming from search engines. A successful SEO campaign should result in an increase of organic traffic that ultimately leads to an increase in sales.
And the last thing small business owners need to know about SEOโฆ
Never pay for SEO unless you know exactly what you are paying for. You should know which keywords your SEO manager is focused on, your past search performance and your current rankings. You should also have a rudimentary understanding of Google Analytics so you are able to see for yourself what impact SEO is having. Whether you learn how to use analytics yourself or they are provided by your SEO contractor, itโs not something you want to overlook.
If you want to learn more about SEO and how crucial it is to ALL local businesses make sure to follow me, join my email list, or better yet schedule a FREE, in-depth consultation at:
https://WorkWithRyanMiller.com/schedule
