Are you ready to embark upon your first SEO campaign? It’s going to be a long but rewarding journey. Before you start investing money, you want to take the time to consider a few reminders that will ensure you stay focused and avoid costly mistakes.
- Know what SEO is and what it means
- Know your ROI
- Choose the right keywords
Let’s expand on each of these:
Know what SEO is and what it means.
It’s not enough to know what SEO means. (Search Engine Optimization, ta-da!) You also have to know what is implied by such a term. Another way of saying SEO is to say you are establishing a strong web presence. You are increasing your web visibility by increasing your page ranking for popular market keyword searches. In order to do this, you must create quality content on a consistent basis so that the search engines will always find something new at your site. That’s SEO in a sentence, and yet many businesses still don’t understand it.
Have an ROI plan.
Not only must you know what SEO can do for you—you must also know what specific goals you have with SEO. Some companies want their SEO to boost online sales, and they make sure to install analytics to track those conversions. Others want SEO to boost brand awareness and trust, and track the results of social media and the number of leads coming in. Still others, (and everybody, really) are attempting to build quality external links and track the search ranking results.
Choose the Right Keywords
Your analytics data will always be misleading if you do not do adequate keyword research. While you can “guess” and be pleasantly surprised from time to time, be sure to balance out your hunches with solid research, and by scouting the competition. As always, these words must be targeted to your business. Much money has been wasted by companies who are simply going after the wrong keywords!
We’ll review more tips in the coming weeks. Just remember the three big issues in investment: understanding the technology, your personal ROI plan, and the best keywords for your business.
