The Importance of SEO: Sell Everything Often

What does SEO mean for a small business? If you are landing here, you might think that isn’t SEO. You would be correct. To make sure we are on the same page, SEO is Search Engine Optimization. This involves search engines such as Google, Bing etc. prioritizing websites over others. Why would search engines prioritize a website over others? The short answer…. for lots of reasons! Relatability, traffic, credibility and quality backlinks are just a few. Notice I said quality backlinks.

Why is SEO so important? In my head the term SEO means “Sell Everything Often.” As a business owner, you want to be seen and ultimately have that visibility turned into revenue. Whether you are product or service based, you are selling something. Maybe you don’t have marketable products or services yet, you are still selling. You are selling your brand, image, expertise… something.

You can have the best product in the world, but if people can’t find it, it won’t matter.

As discussed, that online visibility is really important. A large majority of shoppers will click on one of the first three links when browsing online. You can’t be on the fifth page and expect a lot of organic sales. So, what do I do next? How do I improve that?

Track and Measure

Zig Ziglar said “If you aim at nothing, you’ll hit it every time.” Most people don’t have a clue if 4 people or 400 people are going to their website monthly or annually. Tracking and measuring SEO performance is essential for understanding how well your website ranks in search engines and identifying areas for improvement. The first step is to begin tracking. There are so many great free tools and plugins to use. We use RankMath, Google Analytics, and Google SiteKit on a lot of our websites. Whether it’s increasing organic traffic, improving keyword rankings, or boosting conversions. Once you have set objectives, you can use various tools to monitor key metrics. It may start of slow but that’s okay! What you focus on, moves. It will take time, but you need to start somewhere and having those tools are super helpful.

I don’t want to get too technical as there are plenty of blogs and resources to breakdown organic traffic, user behavior, backlinks and keyword ranking. I want to give you some encouragement to jump in and start measuring. The specific tool can help you build SEO goals and lay out a roadmap. Again, most of these all have a free version and then from there have premium plans that can range from $9.99/month to $99/month.

Regularly reviewing these metrics ensures that your SEO strategy remains effective. By continuously optimizing content, improving technical SEO, and refining keyword targeting, you can enhance your website’s visibility and drive sustainable growth.

Over Time, Build a Great Website

Over time, incorporating SEO best practices, quality backlinks, and making the mobile experience better can all be a game changer long term. Regularly analyzing user behavior, updating content to stay relevant, and improving site performance through faster loading speeds and streamlined design help maintain engagement.

A website should never be static; you would be surprised by the number of sites I go to and see an event or fundraiser from 2019. Most of the time the issue is simply time and intentionality. For a business owner time is a precious thing. Okay, here is my web provider plug, but it’s true, get someone in your corner to help keep eyes on this stuff and provide regular support and maintenance.

We don’t pull our own teeth! Most of us don’t even work on our own cars anymore. At our house, we don’t even groom the dog anymore. Why? It took too much of my time for me to do it, and they know what they’re doing, and in this case do a much better job! Whether you do it yourself or have a professional help you, just be intentional. Your website is your storefront! Don’t have foggy photos, and outdated content. If nothing else figure out your log in, grab your iPhone and get some fresh pictures and spend a couple of hours at night after the kids are in bed and give a little facelift. You’ll be really glad you did.

SEO is a Crock Pot

Living in Michigan, we love our crock pot! Where in the world is this post going now, you may wonder? Slow and steady wins the race. Remember the tortoise? He was slow, he wasn’t flashy, but he kept cookin’. SEO is not a microwave; it’s a crock pot. It takes time, but it can yield big results and be very sustainable. In large majority, these web companies that claim big results in short periods are time aren’t very likely. The “we’ll get you thousands of clicks instantly” normally just isn’t true. There are websites and we at 120 Web Design have customers that have tremendous web traffic, but they’ve been around for a while.

You aren’t going to have a new domain go live and be on the front page of Google in a month, but you also aren’t going to run for the first time and do the Boston Marathon the next month either. However, things out of the crock pot taste much better than the microwave. Understanding this helps expectations and helps us to have a more realistic outlook on our website and traffic. I will say this, imagine if you had started this five years ago. Time goes by fast, and you are going to have a website anyway so why not pay attention and just be mindful of it. There are so many times I look back on customers traffic and analytics and I normally say “wow, it’s been a year already” or sometimes longer. Moral of the story, get started and see where it goes. If you would rather have someone else keep an eye on it for you, that is exactly what we do. Reach out and we will help you get started.