Just having a website will not get you found on the internet.
Here are a couple of examples of responses from people who don’t think they do need SEO!
“Word of mouth get me my business.”
“I post out flyers to get my business.”
How reliable are these strategies?
1. Word of Mouth
It is a good way of getting business. But it has limitations – it is only going to bring you so much business.
2. Posting Flyers
You could spend a lot of money having professional flyers done and a lot of time posting them or pay costs for someone to post them for you. You could post 10,000 flyers and not get a single response. It is hit and miss depending on your demographics.
What if you have a website – surely that is a good way to get business?
You would think that having a website on the internet was an up to date way of marketing your business.
Not necessarily – just having a website will not get you found on the internet.
Of course if you type in your domain name: www.mybusinessname.com or .co.uk then your website will appear. Problem is – only people who know your business name e.g. Manchester Carpets will reach your website (if it is called www.manchester-carpets.com). Or if you actually tell people your specific domain name.
Having a website and taking the above approach is another passive marketing strategy.
What is needed is an active marketing strategy.
You need an SEO consultant company with the SEO knowledge and experience to get you business plus a Google Ad which in the short term with get you a page 1 position until the longer term SEO takes effect.
Both will involve identifying: what you sell and where you sell it. This can be a product or service and a geographical location.
Example : Bicycle spare parts in Sheffield.
What would people have to type on the internet to find your product?
Typing ‘Bicycle spare parts’ into the Google, it returns:
10,100,000 results, over ten million!
‘bicycle spare parts UK’ brought up about 9,870,000 results.
‘bicycle spare parts England’ about 894,000 results.
‘bicycle spare parts Sheffield’ about 2,220,000 results.
‘bicycle spare parts S10 2tn’ about 20,100 results.
‘affordable bicycle spare parts S10 2TN’ (this is not a common search term, it’s just made up to make a point) about 7,040 results.
The more refined the search term the more you get the relevant websites appearing and those not relevant i.e. those outside S10 2TN not appearing. This means the user gets more of what they are looking for and less of what they don’t want.
How can you get your own website to appear for your own search terms?
The only way:
SEO – Search Engine Optimisation