Using SEO to Promote Your Offline Business

In today’s world, it’s common for potential customers to use the internet to find a business, whether it’s a brick and mortar business or an online business.  So most of us know just how important it is for our website to be found online. What many don’t know is just how many similar sites they are competing for and why it is so important to rank well in the search engines.

How often do you use the internet to search for a business or a topic? Once you put your search in and the search engine returns results how many pages do you bother to go through before you try a different search. If you answered 3 or 4, you’d be being generous. On average, most surfers look at the first couple of pages. What that means is if your business does not place well in the search engines, there’s a good chance that searchers will not find you. 

So how does one get their business to place well in the search engine? You do this through search engine optimization or more commonly referred to as SEO. By search engine optimizing your site, you will target traffic to your website and help your site to place better in the search engines.

SEO is about a few things:
* Keywords
* Links
* Relevance
* Visitor Satisfaction

You’ll start by determining your relevant keywords or keyword phrases. You’ll use these to help you rank better for those keywords in the search engines. However, that doesn’t mean you will keyword spam. So be real, use your keyword(s) in your content and help the search engines to help you. Don’t modify your rank by spamming your keyword(s) because Google will penalize you, even ban you. Instead, earn Google respect by doing it right and you’ll be rewarded by Google.

Building a link exchange with other relevant sites also helps to bring targeted traffic to your site. You can also work to get yourself placed in directories or other reputable sources of one-way links will help to place you better in the search engines. Do not make the mistake of getting involved with sites that sell one-way links, as you’ll find yourself penalized by the search engines.

Relevance is always important because the more relevant your site is to what you do and the more relevant the connections in your reach the more the search engines will notice and reward you with better placement. 

In addition, visitor satisfaction can play a role, because happy customers spread the word and share their experience with others and that can help you to do better in the search engines. 

Now that you have a better understanding of SEO, make sure to put it to work for you.
