Making SEO Work For Your Small Business
How do you know if you're visible to others if you can't see yourself? That's the challenge for some of manufacturing's smaller businesses in today's world.
Many small businesses are attempting new marketing strategies on a daily basis. It used to be a panic to be found on the front pages of Google through whatever means possible. Companies have since enforced the ideas of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for increasing their business's internet brand recognition.
Let's first define SEO. SEO simply translates to increasing and, more importantly, improving website traffic from search engines through organic search results. It looks at how and why search engines find your site and how relevant the search term is to your global content.
The recent economic scare has led some manufacturing companies to believe that additional expenditures for marketing campaigns and SEO in a downturn economy can be a waste. With the right tools and a lot of patience, however, SEO can play an important role of allowing your small business to be seen on the front pages of popular search engines just like the big players at a cost that is reasonable, considering the potential return.
Take KLH Industries, Inc. for example. KLH is a precision manufacturing company in Germantown, WI. Last summer KLH was organically listed on Google a handful of times, depending on the search term. Even though KLH does not generally have a product to sell, they have to focus on selling a service. The services they provide are not, by any means, typical. They manufacture critical parts and components for Aerospace, Medical, Energy, Automotive and Electronic equipment manufacturers. With a limited budget and facing a downturn economy, SEO became a cost effective way to put their services and capabilities in front of potential customers on a much larger scale and, for KLH, has proven to be very effective.
One important aspect that you must understand about SEO is that it does not happen overnight. If you already have a website, that's a start but SEO primarily focuses on content. I stress the word content because that is the best way to gain search engine ranking through organic search. While writing content for your website, keep your customers in mind. Make sure the information is not too technical, simplistic or wordy. Keywords play one of the largest roles in SEO and it is up to you as to how you label your products or services so that search engines can find relevance to your site rather than your competitors.
Asking questions and evaluating answers are key measures to find which methods work for your business type but, again, don't expect this to happen right away. Like any business model you have to put something into place, track it, test it and analyze it to determine if you have found the optimal strategy.
KLH is constantly exploring new methods and improving on current methods of SEO. Even through this downturn, KLH's marketing team has developed effective SEO strategies that have helped increase brand recognition, lead generation and customer retention in all market sectors.
In closing, make sure that you are patient, determined and open-minded while implementing the right SEO package for your small business. Do your research and do not be afraid of failure. Remember to focus on what works for your potential customers. SEO is a continuous challenge and perfecting the strategy is only half the battle; the true challenge is maintaining effectiveness.
