So you’ve gone to all the trouble and expense to build a terrific website, and packed it chock-a-block full of original content, yet somehow in all the excitement you’ve neglected to hire a professional SEO and web-copy-writing expert to ensure that your potential customers can actually find it!
Think of this oversight like having the complete works of Shakespeare housed in the world’s largest library, but neglecting to put the titles of the plays on the library’s index card system. Because no matter how great the plays are (and heck, we’re talking Shakespeare here!), if people can’t find them, they might as well not exist at all. To paraphrase the late great Douglas Adams: ‘It’s because the internet is big*. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to the internet’.
Think we’re kidding about the importance of having an SEO specialist on your team? Check out some sobering industry statistics then. Maybe that’ll help you get your head around the business you’re missing out on!
98% of people in the 21st century search for products and services on-line.
85% of all on-line searches are performed via Google.
85% of all clicks are on the organic side of the Google search, with only 15% being on the paid adverts.
92% of people don’t go past the first page of their Google search.
32% of all the Google traffic goes to whoever is #1 on the first page of the Google search.
Take a moment to digest these facts, because we guarantee you that your average customer will search for your products or services on-line (rather than in traditional media). Will perform that search using Google (rather than via another search engine). And will not go past the first page of their Google search (but rather will ‘narrow’ or change their search criteria and search again).
Once you get your head around the above facts, you’ll begin to appreciate that you simply have to get your website on the first pages of your relevant industry specific Google searches to grow your business. And to do that you NEED to hire an expert SEO company to make sure the people who are searching for what you do and where you do it, find you via Google…and not your competition. Because every day you delay hiring an SEO specialist is making your competitors one day richer than you are.
*as at October 18, 2012, there are 8.45 billion pages on the web. Just in case you really wanted specifics!
THE SEO ICEBERG
BUILDING & OPTIMIZING YOUR WEBSITE IS ONLY THE BEGINNING.
As you can see from the above graphic, optimizing your website is only 25% of the ‘SEO Iceberg’ (the part above the water line). In fact it’s a commonly held belief that once you’ve built and optimized your website, your SEO work is done, and you can just sit back and count the money rolling in. But we’re here to tell you that this particular chestnut couldn’t be further from the truth. Because it’s only when you’ve built and optimized your website that the real work begins. And that work involves a detailed ‘Off Page SEO Strategy’ that includes (but is not limited to):
Backlinking
Difficult Question to answer or explain but this chap Julian Goldie is great and very informative in this area
To read more in-depth statistical analysis of the the subject of the first page of Google, please read some of the following articles:
SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
This is where you optimize to appear on the first page of the organic Google searches (the searches that appear on the left of the screen).
SEM (Search Engine Marketing)
This is where you use Pay Per Click to appear on the first page of Google (they are the ‘sponsored links’ that appear on the right, and sometimes on the top, of the search).
SMM (Social Media Marketing)
This is where you utilize web 2.0 properties such as Facebook, Twitter, Google +, Pintrest, etc to drive traffic to your website and to raise awareness.
