It is no secret that many businesses from different industries get most of their customers through online search. More people are going to search engines like Google than ever before when they need a professional or are looking for certain products. Businesses that do not harness the power of online search will miss out on a lot of potential business opportunities.
At Proceed Innovative, we are ready to help businesses who are passionate about what they do and have a desire to grow online. We work with businesses across industries to help them with their SEO marketing so that they can find new business opportunities online. Our Managing Partner, Patrick Panayotov, was a recent guest on the Love Local Media podcast to talk about the importance of harnessing the power of online search and how Proceed Innovative helps our clients do just that to expand their business and online reach.
Check out the full podcast with Patrick:
Strengthen Reputation Through Online Presence
Businesses that are trusted and have a reputation with their customers of providing excellent products or services need to reflect this through their online presence. Sometimes, the online presence of trusted companies does not convey the trust they have built with their customers or the quality of what they do.
Patrick explained that for Proceed Innovative, “it is about finding these businesses that are good at what they do and putting that power and reputation in their online presence so if someone is looking for the best sign company, or the best mover, or the best anything, they want to find a company they can trust and they can be supported by, and that company needs and wants to find people that want to work with them as well. So it’s connecting those two through Google.”
Harnessing the power of Google helps businesses build their online reputation and find more potential customers to grow their business.
Importance of Having a Strong Business Model
In order for businesses to be able to harness the power of online search and really grow their business online, they need to have a good business model in place. Once a business reaches the top of the rankings in the search engine results pages (SERPs), they will start getting more calls and requests and they need to be equipped to handle the sudden influx.
We always make sure that the clients we work with have a strong business model in place with well-defined processes so that when they start getting calls, they have the capacity to handle the higher volume of business. Businesses that do not have a solid business model may become overwhelmed by the higher volume of calls which ultimately will not help reach their marketing goals.
Tracking Key Performance Indicators
Proceed Innovative takes a results driven approach to SEO marketing. This means that our digital marketing strategies are formed with the goals of our clients in mind, and we are constantly measuring several key performance indicators (KPIs) to ensure that we are getting results and that they are on track to meet the marketing goals of our clients. The following are some of the main KPIs used to measure the effectiveness of SEO marketing:
- Visibility: Visibility refers to how visible a business’s website is to those who are searching for their products or services. A big factor in determining the visibility of a website is the amount of keywords and phrases that are included in the optimization of the website. The more keywords and phrases that people can use to find your website, the more visible your website is and the more opportunities you will get through online search. As visibility increases, so does quality traffic from online searches and then it is up to the business to convert these opportunities into leads.
- Organic traffic: This is the traffic that you generate organically through online searches. One of the main goals of SEO is to generate more organic traffic to give your business more opportunities to turn potential customers into leads. Organic traffic is one of the most important KPIs to track to measure the success of your SEO campaign.
- Keyword rankings: Your ranking is your position in the SERPs for your specific keywords and phrases. It is important to track your rankings for each keyword regularly to see where you stand. If you are not ranking well for a certain keyword, you may consider putting in more work for thar keyword to improve your ranking or decide that maybe this keyword isn’t worth your time and energy and focus on more effective keywords.
- Conversions: The ultimate goal of SEO marketing is to increase conversions by turning potential customers into real customers. It is important to not only track your conversions, but also where these conversions came from so you can assess the effectiveness of your SEO strategies.
- Return on investment (ROI): Good SEO requires an investment and when done effectively, you can expect a good ROI. Keeping track of your ROI, including the overall ROI for your campaign as well as the ROI for individual strategies within your SEO campaign, can help you see where your investments are paying off and where they are not so you can adjust accordingly and get the most out of your investment.
Focus on Local SEO
Many businesses trying to grow their online presence service their local area. One of the keys to successfully harnessing the power of search engines like Google is focusing on local SEO. As Patrick explains, “Google has been local focused for years now. Their goal is to find businesses, especially if it’s something that’s local based . . . They know that they want to find not the best company nationwide, because if your basement floods, a company in Texas isn’t going to drive up but somebody from your neighborhood is.”
There are several ways to harness the power of local searches to help your business grow:
- Local optimization: The content created for your website should not only be optimized for your products and services, but also for your local service area. For example, an attorney looking for clients in Chicago, IL should not only optimize their website for “divorce attorneys,” but also for “divorce attorneys in Chicago.”
- Google Business Profile: If your business has a street address, you must take over and optimize your Google Business Profile (GBP). These profiles are completely free from Google, all you have to do is claim your listing and optimize it with your information including a brief bio of your business and what you do, your locations so you can be found on Google Maps, business hours, and more. Having a GBP is important for getting more local searches as they appear besides the organic search results for relevant searches, and getting customer reviews.
- Reviews: Local businesses should focus on getting their customers to leave reviews as positive reviews carry a lot of weight. The main purpose of Google is to answer user’s queries and match them with the best possible answer to their query. Positive reviews indicate that a business is trusted and provides quality services, therefore, businesses that have a lot of good reviews are more likely to be found.
Patrick speaks to the power of Google reviews, “reviews naturally tell Google that your business is more reputable and it’s stronger. They don’t make money off of reviews so they know that those Google reviews matter a whole bunch because people leave them because they want to. And you see really good businesses that might have okay SEO but they have 300 reviews and even if they don’t rank at the top, and their competitors have 20 and let’s say 5 reviews, who are people going to call?”
Internal and External SEO
Search engine optimization (SEO) should be done on two levels to really harness the power of online search, internal, or on page SEO, and external SEO. Internal SEO generally includes the following to make sure your website is best optimized for online search:
- Content optimization: The content on your website should be optimized for your main keywords and service area. This not only includes the text on each page, but also alt text for images, SEO titles, and meta descriptions.
- Loading speed: It is very important for your website to load quickly as people who land on your website will leave immediately if it loads too slow. There are multiple free tools available that measure the loading speed of your website.
- Easy to use navigation: The navigation of your website should be clear and easy to use so that those who find your website can find what they are looking for quickly.
- Mobile responsiveness: The majority of people searching Google for products and services are doing so on mobile devices. Google also engages in mobile first indexing which means that the mobile version of your website is what they index first. Your website must be built to be mobile responsive so that it functions and displays properly on mobile devices.
- Internal linking: Websites consist of many interconnected web pages that are linked together in the site navigation and various other ways. Your website must include internal links so that users can reach every page of your website and any broken internal links should be fixed immediately.
External SEO, also known as off-page SEO, is important because Google takes what other people are saying about your brand and website into account which shows the trust people have in your business and drives more traffic. External SEO generally includes the following:
- Social media marketing: Social media presents businesses with a great opportunity to interact with their target audience directly by starting conversations and answering their questions. Businesses that maximize their social media profiles build online communities surrounding their brand and products or services which builds trust and loyalty.
- Guest blog posts: It is beneficial for businesses to have a blog on their website where they can provide their audience with fresh, valuable content and establish themselves as an authority within their industry. Writing a guest post for a more powerful industry authority that links back to your website will help boost your rankings as Google recognizes that your website is being supported by a more powerful website.
- Podcasting: There are podcasts in many industries that are seen as authorities within their industry. Getting a guest spot on one of these podcasts will increase your brand awareness among a wider audience and give you a chance to tell that audience directly what your business is about and how you can benefit them.
- Link building: The examples discussed above, including social media, guest blogs, and podcasts all have one thing in common, they build external links back to your website. It has always been part of Google’s algorithm to give weight to external links as this shows Google that your website is trusted by other websites that may have more sway in your industry. You can also help your website by joining local businesses associations and getting your link on their site. Businesses associations are often seen as highly trusted sources and being included on these websites will help boost your credibility.
Cohesive Efforts
A good SEO campaign consists of multiple strategies that complement each other to reach a common goal. Everything discussed above, including on-page and off-page SEO, local SEO, KPI tracking, and making adjustments, must be cohesive and focused to achieve your marketing goals and make your brand or business known to a wider audience. Working with a digital marketing agency like Proceed Innovative can help you define your goals as well as create and implement a multi-faceted SEO campaign that will produce results and maximize your ROI.
SEO Marketing from Proceed Innovative
“If your website is a car, SEO is the gas. The biggest mistake an owner can make is spend tens, twenties, hundreds of thousands of dollars on a nice sports car and then say ‘Hey, I’m not paying for gas, I’m going to just leave this in the garage where nobody’s ever going to see it.” – Patrick Panayotov
Having a good website for your business is a great start, but without effective SEO strategies, you will not be able to effectively harness the power of online search and your website ultimately will not be found. SEO requires a concerted, cohesive effort to get that car out of the garage so it can be seen by a wider audience, and it also requires an ongoing effort to make adjustments and continue the success of your campaign.
Proceed Innovative is a digital marketing agency and certified Google Partner that provides complete SEO services to help businesses expand and find more opportunities online. We will understand the marketing goals of your business and work with you to form and implement an SEO marketing strategy that improves your online visibility to bring you more business opportunities.
You can call Proceed Innovative at (800) 933-2402 for more about our SEO marketing services.
