The Real Reason For Being At The Top

It happened again.

Almost every day I hear the phrase, “I want to be at the top of the search engines”. What does that really mean?

Unfortunately, most people say that phrase without actually thinking about what they mean by it. Do they want more visitors to their sites? Do they want more money to come into their businesses?

Simply being at the top of the search engines does nothing for your business. I can send thousands of people to any site on the web. But if I send a thousand vegetarians to a site selling steaks, is it going to be of benefit?

Instead, what people really are asking for is to get noticed. To have quality people come into their site for the opportunity of creating a sale some time in the future. People want leads.

Good quality leads can come from a variety of sources. Just like with traditional marketing methods, you’ll find clients in a variety of different methods. If you take a look at your last five clients, you’re likely to discover they came from a variety of sources. From places like:

• a referral from a past client;
• an ad in a niche targeted magazine;
• a direct mail postcard;
• a meeting at a local networking group; and
• a friend of the family.

The key to traditional marketing methods is not putting all of your eggs into one basket; instead relying on a number of different sources.

But up until now, the Internet has been somewhat different. People are still putting up websites, and expecting people to magically find them. Or they expect to be placed on a search engine in the number one position (out of millions) and be instantly recognized.

A good Internet strategy takes its cue from a traditional marketing plan. It realizes there are dozens of ways to reach a potential customer, and finds ways of capturing each of those methods. So a well marketed site might receive visitors, and ultimately purchasers, from things like:

• a banner ad on a complimentary site;
• a click from a pay-per-click ad;
• a referral from an article on an association site;
• a link from an ezine; and
• yes, a top placement on a strong keyword within the search engines.

Having a clear vision for your business allows you to market your business directly to your ideal target market. The same applies to your website. The clearer you are on your ideal client, the easier it is to reach out to them.

With the Internet, a lot of your marketing strategy relies on searches – what are your customers searching for when they reach your site? Different people search for different things, yet all wind up on the same site making an identical purchase.

How do you capture those visitors?

It’s a matter of thinking like your customers. Why do they come to you? If you don’t know, start asking how they found you. Did they see you in an advertisement, or was it a referral from another company? What were they searching for when they found your company?

As you find different techniques, concentrate on building advertising methods using those techniques.

While many business owners have the belief that a top ranking placement of one keyword will bring in the traffic, in truth concentrating you efforts on multiple, less searched keywords is an easier task to accomplish.

Instead of being at the top of the search engines for a strong keyword such as “marketing”, concentrating on a more targeted phrase such as “small business marketing for health spas” may in turn help you gain more business.

The word “marketing” is huge, and can contain hundreds of different meanings, depending on the searcher. Yet when you narrow your focus to “small business marketing for health spas”, your focus becomes clear, and you have a much greater chance of gaining the attention you are seeking.

And when you have focused on key phrases, it will open up other marketing opportunities. You may find a directory to place a banner ad, or an ezine that is looking for quality articles. Your focus leads you to better quality contacts.

And isn’t that the real reason to be at the top of the search engines?

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Lori Osterberg has created three successful businesses in the past 10 years, and along the way discovered the secrets of taking a local small business and turning it into a worldwide success. She now shares this passion with people all over the world, and speaks, writes and mentors on using technology to grow your business – and stay small at the same time! Receive her FREE ezine at www.VisionOfSuccess.com.

What is SEO, and What Can I Do?

Remember when businesses could survive without a website?

I’ve been online and had at least one website working for me for over 14 years now. Yet I also know that even though I’ve embraced technology, and couldn’t live without it, there are still people out there that have never created a site for their business. In fact, I currently have a half dozen business cards in front of me without an email address on them.

Let’s look at a few stats for a moment. In 2000, Google indexed about 1 billion pages. By the end of 2004, those numbers had risen to 8 billion. Currently, the latest estimate is that Google has indexed about 14 to 15 billion pages. All of this means people are adding a lot of content to the online arena – and its growing not just in America, United Kingdom and Australia. It’s growing in the far corners of the world.

Doing business online has truly made it to the mainstream. And for all of you that have a website and realize the importance, you’ve probably contemplated the next step. SEO, or search engine optimization is about getting your site ranked and in front of your prospects and your customers. But what most people don’t realize the strategy it takes to make that move.

When you think SEO, what does it bring up in your mind? Getting ranked high in the search engines? Magically appearing in ads? Getting more traffic than you can handle?

All of that may be a part of SEO, but unless you create a strategy, it will never happen.

I recently sat down with Jeff, a business consultant. He created a small website a couple of years ago, and left it up more as a brochure than anything else. It didn’t go into a lot of detail about his business; it just gave a brief explanation about Jeff and his business. He received no business from his site, and he was looking to change that.

After a five-minute analysis, I began to see some definite areas where we could make changes. Jeff had a friend who designed his site. This friend dabbled in web design on the side, and did it more for fun. But he now had a new full time position, two kids – and no time to help Jeff make changes. The first problem was Jeff’s friend had used an old "template" for the design, and all of his keywords were from an entirely different industry!

Next, because Jeff knew very little about SEO, he only had one goal with his online strategy: to be number one under the keyword "business consultant" in Google. He spent a few hundred dollars on Google’s Pay Per Click strategy, but recently gave up when he had little success.

Jeff had never sat down and created an online strategy that would truly help his business. He was guilty of the most common problem made by today’s small business owners – he listened to all the wonderful stories about the power of the Internet, yet he never captured any of it for his business because he never did anything to get his site noticed.

We went on to discuss SEO, and what it means for him, and for any small business owner. SEO means finding out what your clients are looking for online, and being there when they search. You don’t want to show up under "business consultant" if your clients are searching for "small business marketing coach". And you won’t magically appear under the term "small business marketing coach" unless you work with your content and your marketing to make it happen.

Like it or not, business is competition. And thanks to the Internet, that competition is fierce. In years past, the people in your local market were your competition; but now that field has spread across the globe. For you to get to your target audience, and to capture sales, you have to work at it.

But the good news is it’s actually the best time in history to get started in online marketing. For both service and product businesses, the tools available today are amazing. In just a few short months, with the right planning, we’re able to capture high rankings under the terms most often searched. And it’s not just a big business strategy – even small businesses can create a lot of magic online.

And it all starts with a strategy.