Big Thumb Design
Big Thumb Design
Lapeer, MI
ph 810.895.5000
fax 810.895.5555
Newspapers are cutting the number of days they print or are just plain going under. Readership is at an all time low. The cost of direct mail keeps going up lock in step with postage rate increases. Social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and others allow us to catch up with old high school friends who might live down the street or on another continent.
As a business owner, you need to take away one thing from all of this. How people get their information has changed.
People don't use the phone book anymore. They use search engines online using phrases like "Mechanic Waterford" or "Wedding Cake Ann Arbor". In fact, you can be guaranteed that people type in your line of work and your city to find your competition on a regular basis.
The internet is not a passing fad or gimmick. It is here to stay and continues to be increasingly depended upon by the American consumer. According to the latest statistics, 74% of the people in the US use the internet. That is compared to 44% in 2000. Without a website, 3 out of 4 people don't know your company exists.
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a catch all phrase where as the end result is hopefully more qualified traffic to your website through a higher search engine ranking.
You should use caution in choosing someone to do search engine optimization for you. This is an unregulated industry.
Lets say you have a website that sells equipment and supplies to people who decorate cakes. You hire a company who guarantees they can get you in the top ten search results for Google. At this point the company can go in several directions that won't be in your best interest.
I will focus on one. You ask them a very educated question being: "What phrase?" In other words, what phrase will they use to put in Google and have your site come up in the top ten? They reply; cake decorator supplies. You sign & pay and a period of time later sure enough, you are in the top ten for the phrase cake decorator supplies.
Great!
I know you are wondering where the catch is in all of this... You are about to have an "a-ha" moment.
You probably won't notice any real increase in traffic because in a recent month Google only received 390 searches for the phrase cake decorator supplies with about 908,000 results. The 390 searches is 390 people with the potential to click on your site. The 908,000 results is what the company you hired had to compete with to get you into the top ten.
Let's put that into perspective. For the phrase cake decorating supplies (notice the difference?) there were 3,170,000 search results they would have had to compete with. Over three times as many. But that same month cake decorating supplies received 74,000 searches on Google! That's not a typo and this is real data. 390 potential visitors vs. 74,000 potential visitors.
That SEO consulting tid bit is a freebie. It is an example to show you we know what we are doing. Search Engine Optimization is a long distance marathon and not a sprint. Done right, SEO results will give you qualified visitors which should be your dominant goal, not just search engine rankings.
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