Forget SEO

Jerry L. Kennedy | TLT Social Media Marketing August 2014

Focus on improving your company’s online discoverability.
 

Make your online content easy to find, easy to read and easy to understand.
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IN THE APRIL TLT, WE DISCUSSED THE MAIN REASON to avoid falling prey to the scams and empty promises of many SEO (search engine optimization) companies. Their tactics are ineffective at best and can do actual harm to your Website’s search rankings at worst.

Like most problems in a business, the problem of helping your clients and prospects find your business online can’t be solved simply by throwing money at it. You have to take ownership of the problem and invest effort and energy in solving it. In other words, you need to put a little skin in the game.

Let’s have a look at a few simple effective ways to improve your company’s online discoverability.

EDUCATE YOURSELF
This is listed first because it seems to be the one thing that most business owners want to avoid at all costs when it comes to Internet marketing. I hear excuses like, “I’m just not a tech person” and “That’s what I pay you to know” all the time. While there is some value in knowing your limitations and employing experts, there is no excuse for not learning at least the fundamentals of how this vital part of your business works. I’ve previously shared Google’s Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide (available here). It’s a valuable resource for anyone who needs to have a basic understanding of how search providers select their top results and how you can improve your chances of moving up the ranks.

THINK STRUCTURE
Whether you’re writing a sentence or designing the layout of your Website, your first consideration should be to structure your content in a way that it will be easily digestible by your most important audience—no, not the search engines, but your readers. Search providers like Google, Yahoo and Bing expend a great deal of effort in writing search algorithms that are becoming ever more effective at sniffing out content that has been given the SEO treatment. In other words, content that’s been written not for human consumption but to game their systems. Such content eventually finds its way to the trash heap. Website owners who rely on it have to continually change their tactics to stay one step ahead of the search robots.

It’s a losing battle, and it’s also pointless. It’s really a lot less effort in the long run to just start by writing content that answers the questions members of your target audience ask when they type their search queries into Google, then placing that content front and center on your Website. It’s amazing to me how many times I come across great content that’s been completely obscured by ads, floating buttons and flashy animations. This is especially important on the mobile version of your Website. Make your online content easy to find, easy to read and easy to understand.

Keep in mind, though, that what you think they’re asking and what they’re actually asking might be completely different. A great tool to help you find out what terms folks are actually searching for is Google Adwords’ Keyword Research Tool. You can sign up for a free account here and go to Tools and select Keyword Planner from the menu.

Once you know what your audience is searching for, write content that answers those specific questions.

MEASURE AND TEST
It’s amazing to me the amount of effort folks will spend on getting eyeballs to a Website that has no way to measure how many visitors the site has had or what their behavior was once there. If you’re going to put forth the effort to improve your discoverability online, make sure you have a way to measure the effects! Again, I recommend Google programs for this job such as analytics and Webmaster tools. They’re free and relatively simple to use, and they make the job of getting your content found online exponentially easier. Best of all, you’ll be able to get immediate feedback on what content is engaging your audiences versus what content is being overlooked or ignored.

As with any business problem, a little focused, consistent effort can net huge results on your search rankings. But what can you do to keep folks engaged once they’ve arrived on your site? That will be the focus of a future article.
 

Jerry Kennedy earned his stripes as an operations and sales manager in the lubricants industry. He is currently the co-founder of CDK Creative, a digital marketing agency that brings his real-world sales and operations experience to the world of online marketing. Learn more or request a consultation at http://cdkcreative.com. Email him at jerry@jerrykennedy.com.