It’s great to have a website, but most people want their website to be easily found on the internet. And in order for that to happen, you need to practice some effective search engine optimization techniques on your website. There’s a lot of confusion out there as to what to do with search engine optimization.
I have run into many business owners who are paying either webmasters or marketing companies hundreds of dollars a month for search engine optimization. I’m here to tell you that it’s a huge waste of money. If you properly optimize your website yourself, you don’t have to maintain it with the search engine marketers. I have had websites that I have built the necessary code into and inserted the necessary elements onto the website and onto the server which experienced tremendous results for years, and I haven't gone back and changed them.
Be very careful out there of marketing offers to submit your site to search engines. I have never once submitted a site to a search engine. As I said before if you do it properly, you don’t need to do that.
One effective way to get results in search engine optimization is to hire an well-trained SEO consultant to make recommendations for you. Then they should work with your webmaster to implement the changes. Again, be wary of SEO services that require a monthly fee. It is best to have the optimization built into your site than to pay for marketing like Google Adwords when it may not be necessary.
Depending on your industry and the goals you have for your website, will depend on your SEO strategy. If you provide a service in your geographic area for which there is not a lot of competition on the internet, you should easily be able to rank on the first page of Google. If you are in an industry with a lot of local or national competition, and many of your competitors have also implemented SEO techniques, it may take more effort to get that Page 1 result.
Here is an example: I often work with holistic dentists all over the United States. Typically, there is not a lot of competition for this specialty of dentistry in any given area. With proper on page SEO, it is not difficult to land on Page 1 and stay there. I can often get our desired results within a week or so.
However, in an area like photography, especially in Los Angeles, it has proven to be very difficult to get the Page 1 ranking because of the number of photographers, and many of them have implemented some strong SEO techniques. Not that it can't be achieved, but it will take much more on-page and off-page effort and time.
In such situations, it may be a good strategy to narrow your focus or use a niche aspect of your business to feature or put the SEO efforts into.
For example, when we optimized a website for an air purifier business, we optimized for select keywords. We didn't try to go after the biggest keywords that were extremely difficult to rank highly, like "air purifier." We optimized for alternate yet satisfactory search terms like "home air purifier" or "air cleaner." This move greatly improved the online business because they didn't rank well for any search terms previous to our optimization. When a customer calls or places an order, we didn't really care if they typed "air purifier" or "home air cleaner" - as long as now there was an opportunity for a sale that wasn't there before.
Where Can I Find an SEO Consultant?
I don't recommend responding to emails that came to you without your request. It is better to find a reputable SEO consultant by referral or review. Just recently, I had a discussion with a small company that offered SEO services, and when I went to their own website, I saw absolutely no SEO implemented.
I would recommend using a service like Scriptlance.com or using someone that has been successful for someone you know. The advantage of Scriptlance.com is that you can read reviews from actual SEO projects.
A good SEO consultation will cost approximately $400 to $700. But if they are complete and done well, they are worth every penny.