Chapter One : What is SEO?

What is SEO?

What is SEO? SEO (search engine optimization) is the process of designing your website, pages on your site and content both on your site and external to your site in a way that it shows up in the top results of a search engine for a given topic, keyword, set of keywords of phrases.

Now that we have the technical definition out of the way, lets take the simple definition.

When I get asked the question, “What is SEO?” I usually repond “SEO is basically a strategy and process to follow to get your site to show on the first page of Google's results...”

Why Google?

One: If you can rank in Google, it is likely you will rank in any other important search engine.
Two: Google has the lions share of the search market
Three: The techniques used to optimize for Google work for the other search engines

So in essence, the goal of SEO is to get you to show up organically (organically: meaning naturally, at no cost) within the top results in a search engines results like Google. However, what is truly important about SEO is not necessarily the rank, but the words for which you rank. Huh?

For example, if you sell used cars exclusively in Chicago, would you want to show highly in search results when users search for new cars nationally? Probably not. Would you want to show up for used cars nationally? Maybe. What about when a user searches for used cars in Chicago? Now you're talking. Case in point, ranking means ranking highly when it comes to the right keywords – this is a big part of SEO.

So, when you think about it, even though the number of searches and audience searching for used cars in Chicago is smaller, if you sell used cars in Chicago, these are the searches and customers you want.

Why is SEO worth my time?

SEO is the cheapest way to market. It is also one of the best ways to own a search niche, particularly online. While search engine marketing will get your their quick, it can be expensive. In addition, it is viewed as less credible than an “organic” rank.

Here are a few of the pros and cons of pursuing an SEO strategy for your business.

Pros of SEO	Cons of SEO
Low cost - other than time if you do it yourself. Higher conversion rates than search engine marketing. Lends credibility to your business to show up in the “organic” search results.	Takes time to accomplish top ranks Requires ongoing monitoring and updating to keep pace with search engines changing algorithms.

To me, an SEO strategy is worth your time given it is a low cost, credible way to reach your customers online with little downside risk other than an investment of time.

However, it is also important to note that SEO should not be your only online marketing strategy. Rather it should be used in conjunction with at least one to two other tactics that augment it. This is particularly true if you want quick, immediate traffic – in which case you may want to start with PPC advertising and build your reach using SEO.

An example of what SEO is and why a diversified strategy is often required

Suppose you are a local florist. You have two business objectives you would like to achieve. You want to own the local market for weddings (since they are high ticket price / high profit) while expanding nationally. To own the local market for weddings is completely doable using SEO and probably rather quick since the keywords you will use are likely not highly competed for.

To accomplish this SEO objective, you might include three keywords on your pages (note: I have not done extensive research on these, they are meant to be illustrative only).

wedding flowers evanston il
wedding decorations evanston il
flowers for weddings evanston il

Specific keywords / phrases targeted at your local market and customers having or hosting weddings. Chances are there are not too many SEO savvy florists in Evanston trying to dominate the wedding search online.

Yet, despite the fact that it will be rather easy to own to local market for “wedding flowers” it wouldn't hurt to supplement your SEO strategy with some local keyword advertising through Google, Yahoo or Local.com. This would ensure further ownership of the search term locally and also give you immediate traffic while you build out your SEO strategy.

Now for the second part of the objective, to expand nationally. This is where SEO gets dicey. If you are focusing on generic search terms around flowers, floral arrangments, etc. you are going to face stiff competition from companies a lot bigger than yours – does 1800Flowers ring a bell? Now don't get me wrong, achieving an organic search ranking above these big guys is possible – I've seen it done.

However, it is going to take two things. Time and a lot of SEO. You are going to need to spend significant time using every SEO tactic in the book and building more inbound links than the top ranking competitors. Time that might be better spent building your business in other ways.

So before you go toe to toe on SEO with the bug guys nationally, I would instead recommend two different tactics. One, focus on a niche national market – get well floral arrangements as an example. You could easily optimize for this phrase and probably more easily dominate the national scene for this keyword in a shorter amount of time.

Note: What is important when selecting a niche, or any keywords for that matter, is to conduct extensive keywords research and to understand the competition for that phrase. Too much competition in a niche will be as much or more of an uphill battle than owning a generic keyword. More on this later.

Second, beyond SEO you could buy keywords on major search engines such as Google for florist, flowers, etc. This will ensure you will be shown in the search results... However, be careful, it is going to cost you. Be sure the lifetime customer value and profits it brings outweigh the costs. Otherwise, you will quickly find yourself in a losing situation.

Now that I know what SEO is, how long will SEO take to work?

Here's the bad news. SEO is the most time intensive internet marketing technique. This is true in terms of both the time you must invest to be successful and the time it takes for your efforts to produce results.

However, the results you achieve will far outweigh those of other tactics in terms the length for which the results persist, the cost (SEO costs nothing more than your time) and the number of impressions that convert to visitors (since natural, organic results produce more clicks)...

With that being said, you can realistically expect that it will take anywhere from three to six months to see results if you do it right. Prior to the three month mark, results will start to trickle in, however, around the three to six month point you should reach the tipping point.