I’m honored (again) to have been asked to write today’s post for our company blog. There are so many possibilities I could choose from. But, since I’ve been talking about it all week, let’s talk about search engine optimization and marketing (SEO/SEM). The first step is having a website. Have that? Check. The second step is looking to see if you need to do any online marketing. (I can tell you that you will absolutely benefit from it, but let’s walk through the exercise anyway.)
In order to start, you need to think about your business. Answer the following questions:
- Is your client base local, national, or global?
- Do you offer products, services, or both?
- Who are your main competitors?
- What products/services do you offer?
Pretty easy so far, right? Probably feeling pretty good that you answered all of them correctly? This is where things may get a bit depressing. Open a new window or tab in your browser. Go to www.google.com. In the search box, type in the name of the product or service you offer. If you are serving a local client base, type in one of the cities you serve as well. For Mavidea, I might type in, “stability bloomington, il,” which is the name of our proactive network management product. Not surprisingly, Mavidea isn’t one of the first results. “Stability” is a pretty common term and isn’t what a prospective client would probably be typing in, anyway. So, we need to think like a client. In this case, Stability refers to our network management product. If we change our search results to “network management bloomington, il,” Mavidea is at the top of the list. This is important. Too often, I run across business owners who don’t feel that they need online marketing because, when they type in their company name, they show right up. Is a client going to type in the name of your business when looking for your services? The sad truth is, probably not.
Instead, they’re going to use generic words to describe your services like “plumber,” “painter,” or “candlestick maker.” These are the words you need to use, too, in order to determine how you rank against your competitors.
If you serve a national or global client base, it’s good to try the names of major metropolitan areas in your search, as well as just leaving off the location all together. You need to think like a prospect. If they are looking for a plumber, location becomes very important. If they’re looking for someplace to order their next set of promotional materials emblazoned with their company logo, location is probably not going to be a factor.
I asked you to think about who your competitors are, too. The reason? Watch for them. Do they come up above you in the rankings? If they do, it means they’re probably getting more business than you. Back in the heyday of the yellow pages, when businesses were listed in alphabetical order, there was a reason for a lot of companies being named “A-1 Whatever Business They Were.” It was because they were listed first. With the Internet, it isn’t that easy.
The good news is that you don’t have to settle for the position you are in. If you noticed that you’re not in the top 10, or even on the first page, help is available. We offer services that can help you understand what your clients are looking for when they are searching for your business. We have tools at our disposal which allow us to see what people are actually typing in when they’re looking for your kind of business. This means, we can get maximum results for minimum investment. And, in this case, results are visitors to your website. We can’t guarantee that those visitors will buy anything (much as having a client come in and browse in a retail store doesn’t automatically mean you make a return), but if they go to your competitors’ site instead, we can guarantee you won’t see a return from that!
Even if you are in the top 10 for the products and services you offer, we can help you drive more traffic to your site and generate more sales once the traffic gets there. Would you be surprised if I told you that 76% of people turn to the Internet as their way of finding local businesses? What if I told you that removing people over the age of 60 drives that number to almost 90%? That’s business that could be coming to you. Mavidea offers free SEO/SEM assessments – we’ll take a look at your site, do some preliminary research on how much traffic is out there (do you know how many people search for “pizza delivery, Bloomington, il” every month on Google? Because I do…), and help you understand how you would benefit from our Search Engine Optimization packages. Whether your business provides products or services locally, nationally, or globally, we can help you drive more prospective clients to your business through the power of technology.
And you thought geeks were only helpful when your computer was broken….
Until next time!
Dan
