Even external social media links A Complete Course How a comprehensive marketing strategy can help your company win more business and protect its brand.
what is Seo? Guide your web users & protect your brand name. Being on the first page of Google search results for your company name is critical. Research shows that the first page of Google search results receive an overwhelming 90% of all click-throughs. Chapter Objectives Define & explore search engine optimization (SEO) Illustrate the process of SEO Determine why ARM firms need SEO For web visitors, finding information about a company is sort of like driving to to a new place. They get into their car (Google) and head off on the road (the Internet) until they reach the information they want (the destination). But how do you guarantee that they end up at your site and not another? Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, works like a GPS unit. It tells Google that the best answer to the user's question is your site, not some other. It gives you control over critical search terms - like your company name, empowering you to protect it from negative perception. Defining Key Terms SEO ESS-ee-oh, noun A collection of best practices and strategies designed to improve a website s performance in Google search engine results. SEO services from insidearm help protect DECA's brand name from negative results. John Owen, Director DECA Financial Services So what exactly is SEO? Basically, it's a series of best practices and strategies that help your site rank higher. This is accomplished through tweaking things like text or code on your website, as well as the creation of quality links from other sites back to yours. In this chapter, we'll dive into the very basics of how SEO works, as well as why ARM firms need to pay attention to it as a viable means of generating new business leads while protecting their brand names. There are a lot of companies who do SEO, but not all of them do it the right way. If you use an SEO consultant, make sure that they are not using what are termed black hat SEO techniques. These nefarious maneuvers may get you higher results more quickly, but they can result in your site being blacklisted by Google! Self-check Question What shows up when I Google my company s name? Don t think that SEO matters for your company? What happens when a prospect Googles your company name and finds negative results? SEO helps protect your firm s good name by making sure that you control the message about your company. What is SEO? 1
how seo works Even external social media links Co ntent Li nks } validation of a website Ever been to that restaurant? SEO works the same way that word-of-mouth does. You would never endorse a restaurant that you didn t like, and you certainly would not recommend it to your friend. SEO works the same way. When a site (let's use insidearm.com as an example) has good content that answers a question that a Google user has, such as "what is accounts receivable management," Google is more likely to endorse insidearm.com as an answer to the search query. If other sites link to insidearm.com, then they have effectively validated insidearm.com as a viable answer to that search query. In the real world, we all do the same thing when a friend asks us if we have eaten at a specific restaurant or our opinion of a particular book. With that general concept in mind, there are many technical aspects to SEO. Content and code both need to be optimized for the keyword that a specific page is targeting. There are certain best practices to follow when doing "on-page" optimization, such as using the keyword in the page title. Perhaps the most critical on-page tweak is to have the keyword in your page title. Interestingly, proximity to the beginning of the title can also make a difference, as does the length of the title. Google places the most importance on page title, so make sure you have one! The other critical factor is getting links back to your site. An endorsement from a high-quality site is worth more than many links from spammy directories, so be careful of consultants who tell you that they can quickly acquire hundreds of links - they could actually hurt your reputation rather than help you. Self-check Questions How often do I review the text and code of my website? Do I even know if people link to my site? 2 how seo works
Why you need seo help Achieve more with insidearm s SEO services. insidearm.com gives you a powerful external link opportunity. We can link to your content or post it on our site to combat negative results and help you protect your brand. Chapter Review Let s review what you ve learned in this chapter. As you answer, remember that insidearm.com is here to help develop and execute on an SEO strategy built specifically for your company. How does SEO help my business? How does SEO get me more leads? SEO gives my business a better chance to win targeted keywords and show up higher in Google search results. How does SEO protect my brand name online? By building optimized content and getting it linked from strong sites, I can push negative stuff off the first page of results. You competitor is engaging in SEO and you are not. What happens if a mutual prospect searches for both of you and finds negative results attached to your company s name? My competitor would probably win the prospect's business. The prospect would be hesitant to work with a company that had a bad online reputation because it would reflect badly on them. Write the molecular formula for a winning SEO program. SEO = Co + Li (SEO = Content + Links) remember - content is king Defining Key Terms backlink BAK-lingk, noun A link from an external site which leads back to your site. The higher the reputation of the external site, the more valuable the backlink. Quality over quantity! The one backlink you get from a site like insidearm.com is worth more than 50 spam directory links. Carefully consider the quality of the SEO consultant you entrust with your good name. SEO is just the first step - once you get a visitor to your site, how are you converting them into a lead? Do you have whitepapers or anything worth reading beyond boilerplate information? Talk to us about insidearm.com s custom content offerings. Why you need seo help 3
Even external social media links Jennifer Minges Client Marketing Specialist jminges@kaulkin.com 240-499-3846 Get in touch with insidearm.com Kaulkin Media brings you 10+ years of ARM marketing and content development success. If anyone knows how to reach your targets, it s us. Why go to a generalist who won t know anything about our industry? ARM is a complicated beast don t leave your company s marketing engine to chance. www.insidearm.com/creativeservices INSIDEARM.COM 6010 EXECUTIVE BLVD #802 rockville MD 20852