The most dependable source of income these days for a lot of individual entrepreneurs is the internet. Whether it is an independent business or an organization, there is no escaping the trend that digital marketing is here to stay. It is necessary thus to have an online marketing strategy development for business promotion. This latest buzz also requires that you have a strong brand value and a social media persona online. Also, other ways include email subscription and SEO that will place your business site on the top search and make it easier for potential customers to find your product or services more conveniently. Placing your product on top search in an organic way, in search engine giants like Google, will automatically gain visitor’s trust and will result in potential customers.
Does having a website enough?
However, even though you have a website of your own, it is simply not enough. Having a website is only the first step as there are other factors such as ranking on search page and traffic to a website that will guarantee or reduce the chances of your business having a turnover and financial success. Also, it is important that you make your site very mobile responsive as a significant part of the population today gains access to the internet through their smartphones and various apps. Google has changed the face of online marketing in various ways, and it keeps on doing so now and then and to fully take advantage of this one must stay updated all the time and utilize SEO to its full potential.
The role of SEO
This is where SEO comes into the picture. SEO is the technique by which you ensure that your business website appears on a top search on search engines like Google and Bing whenever someone is searching for something similar to what you sell; the key here is, relevance and quality content which will hold the visitor’s trust and attention. Of course, it is proven that sites that gain a top place in search engines in an organic way through right SEO gain a bigger trust with clients than those with sponsored or paid placements.
Now SEO can work in two ways; on-site optimization and off site optimization.
What is on-site optimization?
This is the process that ensures that your website will receive well by both viewers as well as search engines and can be achieved by putting in the right keywords, key phrases and meta tags on the page of your site. Google determines how to rank your website based on these data. This is basically what is known as SEO.
Off-site optimization:
This is another way to gain a high rank for your business site, but it uses external methods, unlike SEO. This method cannot be done on your website the same way on site optimization is done though. In this way, Google tries to organize the sites in a way that Google thinks are the most authoritative and prioritize them into a higher rank. Now more often than not, the site’s importance is judged by how many other sites are linked to it. So make sure that your site is linked and it appears on large platforms and favorite blogs as well. This will help in getting a higher rank in Google search.
What is white-hat SEO?
This refers to applying of different, legal optimization methods that will drive a larger traffic to your website and thus will achieve a higher ranking on top search engines. This type of traffic is organic traffic. One can opt for certain ways such as back linking, keyword analysis, and link building to achieve these results. The target should be to increase word of mouth or popularity to increase your site’s ranking.
Black hat SEO:
This process involves various illegal methods to achieve the similar objective to White hat SEO, but it is the direct opposite of the approach White-hat SEO takes. Some of the methods used here include keyword stuffing, use of invisible text, creating fake pages to get desired backlinks, page swapping, etc.
Even though it will give you results initially but these methods are illegal and in the long run, are not very advisable as they might cause your site to be banned on the online platform and may cause a bad reputation for your business.
Effect on business:
As an entrepreneur, you must understand the impact these various methods of SEO will have on your business. In a digitally influenced world, there are seven categories that can help you gain online control in the business world. They are SEO, search engine marketing, content marketing, social media marketing, pay-per-click advertising, affiliate marketing and email marketing.
The biggest issues entrepreneurs face regarding SEO:
Many entrepreneurs know about digital marketing, and in their head, they have this idea that SEO takes care of it automatically which is not how it works. Secondly, many entrepreneurs consider SEO to be a magic bullet that will overnight solve their business growth problems and produce mass visibility and total market domination. Too much trust in the power of SEO alone most of the time can also backfire. There was a time when this was true though, but over time with constant updates like Google, the scenario is changing very fast.