There’s no doubt that the internet holds a place of preeminence in the marketing world. With the rise of the millennial generation, the internet has become the most trusted source of information for many. Because of this drastic change in the way that information is digested, it is important that you establish your business as an authoritative source online.
Many people gather information about businesses online before frequenting the establishment’s brick and mortar site. This means that it is of the utmost importance that you establish your company as a reliable online authority to maximize your online presence. This is called search engine optimization — SEO for short.
If you are not putting in effort or resources toward improving your enterprise’s search engine ranking, then you’re being negligent about your online presence.
What is SEO?
If you’re an entrepreneur, especially if you engage in e-commerce, then you have likely heard of SEO. Maybe you’ve heard that it is the new wave of marketing. However, much of the talk surrounding SEO and search engine ranking is ambivalent. It doesn’t help you to know that something is great for your business with no indicator as to how or why. Search engine optimization is the practice of implementing methods to increase your company’s ranking on search engines.
SEO is a practice and not a method. That is, to say, SEO is not simply a way of building your brand’s search engine authority, but it is the way. There are several keys to an effective SEO campaign: link building, creating engaging and accurate content, and maintaining a good search engine reputation.
What is link building?
Link building is one of the most efficacious ways to establish and maintain your company as an authority in your field of commerce. Hyperlinks are the highlighted or colored text within online content. Of course, when you click on the highlighted text, it links you to another web page with content, products, or services that are relative to the content you click on.
Many companies get themselves penalized by search engines because of the methods that they use to link content to their websites. A sure way to destroy the trust vested in you by search engines is to link content that isn’t yours to your site without the consent of the content’s creator. This is the equivalent of trying to steal credibility — a bit of an oxymoron, right? Well, Google, which is the world’s preeminent search engine, recognizes it as such and punishes credibility thieves.
However, there are preferred ways to generate links that search engines honor. The simplest do-it-yourself method is to build a relationship with companies that provide similar (but not identical) products and services. Doing this opens the door to striking up a backlinking partnership with other businesses. This way, you can cultivate authority by getting your partners to link their authoritative content to your website or feature your content on their site.
Building your search engine ranking organically
Search engines love a company with an online presence that is grown organically. This is done through several methods. One way is to create accurate and engaging content that others will want to link their own content to. Experts like Search Atlas can also help you build links organically.
These sorts of companies have tools at their disposal that help them choose who it’s best to build links with and the most relative keywords to use for linking. They employ writers who have learned the ins and outs of SEO and know how to create authoritative content built around the keywords that searchers are using.
Your company’s online presence is too important to leave to chance or approach haphazardly. If you are not fluent in SEO, then it is best to leave it to the pros. They can create engaging link-worthy content, and they have relationships with other clients that they can get to link their content to your site.
The worst thing that you can do for your company’s search engine ranking is nothing at all. Take SEO seriously — organic link building especially — and you will be rewarded with the trust of Google and other search engines.
