Your client wants to be on page one of Google’s organic search results. But you and your agency have not yet entered the wonderful world of search. What should you do? Here are 5 options for obtaining top organic search results.
Optimize the client’s website for search engines – Otherwise known as search engine optimization or SEO. Requires making changes to a website’s code, design and content to follow the search engines’ recommendations for SEO best practices. The good news is that search engine optimization done well usually delivers long-term organic results. And you own the site, you have complete control over it and the content is exclusive to the company. However, the cons with search engine optimization are that you must make changes to your website, which is not necessarily inexpensive or painless. And SEO can take six to 12 months to see the organic results. But perhaps the biggest barrier for an agency is that SEO requires specific expertise and experience. Agencies without experience with website SEO should find an SEO consultant to hire or to bring in as a partner. To learn more about optimizing a website, read this article.
Launch a company blog — There are plenty of blogging platforms, even free ones like the one used for Search Matters from WordPress. Most are extremely easy to use for the non-technical and have many search engine optimization features built in. However, be prepared to write and publish often, and to invest time to market your blog. It takes about six to nine months at the least to build the authority of the blog to the point of realizing seo benefits. But the long-term benefits of a blog are great. Here’s an article to help you get started with a blog.
Add the company to online directory listings – There are countless online directories for companies. These range from online yellow pages, business listings, and map listings to industry, product or geography specific directories, and more. Advantages for directories are that they do not require special expertise, many listings are free, and most only require a one-time submission. But, the challenge with directory listings is that you are usually along side your competition fighting for attention. And, you are limited to just the company name. To get rid of ads on the page or to get above your competition, you will have to pay for a premium listing. Although it is a good idea to make sure your client is listed in the major online directories and targeted directories, it is not necessarily a long-term strategy to get your client to the top of organic search – with the exception perhaps of the company name. You may read more about directory submission here.
Submit articles to online sites – Also known as article submission or article marketing. You write articles around the topics of your business integrating targeted keywords and submit them for publishing on various article sites. It is important to publish articles with quality content, providing educational information. The biggest sin of article marketing is just writing a sales pitch. Article submission allows you to extend your message across the internet as well as search engines without making changes to the company website. It helps the company build itself as an authority in the industry. However, some of the article sites review articles prior to publishing and deny those deemed to not meet their article standards. And like blogging, there is time involved in writing the articles as well as the submission process. Here is an article that further discusses the benefits of article submission.
Become an Ecordia Reseller Partner – Ecordia is the proverbial “all of the above” option for agencies because it combines the search engine optimization best practices and advantages of websites, blogs, directories and articles. At its core it is a super-charged directory of landing pages. It is a non-technical way for agencies to publish content for its clients onto pages custom styled according to the client’s brand identity. Ecordia integrates a keyword research tool and an automatic SEO analysis for the content. So you’ll know prior to publishing how optimized the content is, and what you can do to improve the findability of the page. Simply put, Google loves Ecordia pages. To learn more about Ecordia, visit the website.
These are just a few of the ideas for search engine optimization. It really is becoming easier than ever before for the non-technical to conquer the top of mount Google.