What is SEO?
This question is still being asked today. I also constantly run across folks who ask me another question, “Why does it matter if I do SEO or not?” It’s obvious, but what the heck, let’s go over some of the reasons why SEO matters.
SEO is still important to boost your business
So What Does SEO Mean in Marketing? Why Bother?
First, a quick reminder for those who may be new: SEO stands for search engine optimization. It’s the process of bring your website to its audience using our understanding of search engines (typically Google). So why should you care?
First, because pretty much everybody else is doing it. This means your competitor in your business vertical would like to kick your butt in search engine rankings, so he or she is probably plotting his or her latest SEO strategy. But if they aren’t, if they are lazier than you, then guess what? Any SEO effort you do will help you outrank them.
Next, because SEO is still cost effective. If you apply SEO processes, strategies and principles to your site that are organic, as long as you have your site up and running, you’ll gain the benefit of SEO time and time again. If you do “white hat” SEO, you’ll be mostly fine, as long as you stay up on the latest Google and search engine updates and apply ongoing SEO strategy as necessary.
Which leads to the next reason why you want to do SEO–the search engines do constantly tweak, tune, refine and update their algorithms. While there are some constants, such as creating fresh, new, updated content for your human audience, there are changing conditions and strategies.
For example, the recent Google Penguin algorithm update has turned link building pretty much upside down. If you primarily depended upon directory submissions by the hundreds, and did not vary your anchor link text, you can be assured that you probably took some kind of hit in the last few months.
Link building is always supposed to be natural and un-forced, and if you haven’t updated your link building tactics in a long time, start doing so now.
So what effect does SEO have on your search? SEO still matters because if you depend upon your website to help you sell your services and products and it can’t be found by your target market, you will not make any money. Your site is then just an anchor dragging you down. If you don’t know the keywords your prospects are plugging into search boxes, how the hell do you expect to convert them to clients?
Search Engine Academy keeps up with all the latest search engine algorithm changes. We incorporate those changes into our SEO training classes. Stay on top of your SEO efforts by attending one of our classes and start optimizing your site for better search results right away!