You Don’t Need SEO, You Need A Marketing Plan
Lots of people often tell me “I need SEO” (Search Engine Optimization) or “How can I get to the front page of Google search?”
If you’ve ever though this, here’s probably what you’re really saying:
“I want more visitors to my site.”
Naturally you’d want more people to visit your site. It feels nice to know people actually come to visit. And if you’re in business, that visitor is more likely to buy something from you.
While there’s nothing wrong with wanting to rank for certain searches, it’s not very simple to do. Nor is it the only way to get traffic.
9 times out of 10, anyone who asks for SEO I end up recommending a different strategy to start with.
Here’s why…
Google Doesn’t Work The Way You Think It Does
Several years ago search engines would categorize sites based on keywords that web designers put in the code of a website, called meta tags.
I could make a site, put in some code, and I could get easily found for that keyword. Fast forward to the internet becoming super huge… there’s no way that can scale when 79,000,000 pages can be found for a single search.
Google stopped looking at keyword meta tags a long time ago, and now they have a very complex algorithm to calculate the most relevant pages for a user’s search.
Recent & relevant content helps, a site that consistently produces content over a long period of time is favored, being linked to from other sites is great, and sites/pages that get a lot of social sharing are more likely to get closer to the top as well.
So if you have a brand new site with very few pages and want to rank for a keyword where millions of other searches come up at the same time… it’s probably not gonna work out.
For now.
What You Really Need Is A Better Plan
If you want traffic to your site, first start off the old fashioned way… telling people you know.
Naturally the old fashioned way is possible with new technology, so you can still reach a lot of people very quickly.
You can…
- Send an email to everyone you know
- Post a link on Facebook every few days
- Call or text people and ask them to visit your site
- Buy some Facebook ads
- Get friends to do all of the above with you
Then put an email opt-in form to collect email addresses so you can send messages to keep people coming back!
Make Great Stuff And Promote It
Make sure you have a quality website that is worth sharing.
If you’re goal for getting SEO services is because you don’t want to spend the time making a quality product or website, you’re not going to do very well.
SEO has it’s place, of course, but best results occur later on after you’ve been consistently creating useful content.
The lesson here is know what you really want and why. SEO and online marketing is a huge topic, so get clear where you’re going in order to get the best possible results.
What questions do you have about promoting your website? Leave me a comment below!
Photo: “Magnify.” by catd_mitchell