By Tracey Armstrong | April 9, 2009
Google search
Not long ago, as a business owner, you merely needed to have a website to establish your online presence. In many cases, this meant the company website was a glorified brochure – customers were directed to the website by the salesperson or through traditional media. Customers didn’t just “find” you, you broadcasted your message to them through traditional media, and the website supplemented the sales pitch.
Flash forward a few years…if someone has a question, they “google” it. Today we “google” products, services, people, places, and what ever else we want to know more about – yeah, Google not only introduced a whole new vocabulary, but a whole new concept for searching and making decisions.
So how does this affect you, the business owner? People make their decisions about whether or not to even enlist your services or buy your products before you even get to talk to them!
Today, you need to be findable when someone “googles” the products and service you provide.
…and then you also need to:
- Deliver helpful information once they arrive at your site
- Maintain their attention and interest
- Establish trust
- Make a conversion – have them buy something, sign-up for a newsletter, contact you…
So how does your site become findable when someone googles a need you can fulfill?
The basic concept is to promote your website visibility within search engine result pages (SERPs). The act of increasing a website’s findability is commonly referred to as Search Engine Marketing (SEM), and includes one or both of the following:
- Paid Placement :: on google, these are the results (sponsored listings) typically on the right side of the page. It’s all based on “bidding” for visibility – everytime someone clicks on your listing, you pay. Its effects are immediate – this can be a great thing at first, but as a long-term strategy, it will not strengthen your presence…once you quit, your website has no power without paying for it. Statistically, only 30% of users trust these sponsored listings enough to click on them.
Our Take: Paid placement can be helpful as an initial tactic if your site currently has zero visibility on the search engines (brand new site), or if your area of search is super competitive, or if your target searches are based on broad search terms and you need time to gain momentum in these areas.
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO) :: the process of improving a website’s visibility via “natural” or “organic” search results (the main portion of the results page and can also include image search and local search). Users trust organic results, as a whopping 70% of searchers click on these. Typically, the earlier a site shows on the search engine results list, the more traffic it will receive. SEO makes your site healthy, it considers how search engines work and what people are searching for – it strengthens your site for search.
Our Take: Optimizing a website is not a quick fix and must be continually maintained, it may take months to gain momentum and see quantifiable results…but once momentum is gained, your web presence will be formidable and the return on investment has the possibility to be great.
Search Engine Marketing has the power to transform your website into a powerful prospecting tool, giving you the ability to meet these prospective clients when they are focused. If you can fulfill people’s needs at the exact moment they are searching for the services or products you provide – imagine what this can mean for your bottom line.
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About the authorTracey is an interactive strategist at Robert Sharp & Associates. Social media enthusiast, career student, former professor, writer, sculptor, and basically just inquisitive by nature, she is obsessed with language and fascinated by all things search.
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