The importance of Search Engine Optimization

(this entry was originally written for Marketing Firm Salient Strategists ‘ April 2008 Newsletter)

Imagine that you are a restaurant owner (this may not be difficult for some of you!), and that your new restaurant is located on a large, busy street in a well populated area. Everything is ready – the décor is finally just perfect, the tables are set, and the staff is eagerly awaiting an influx of hungry customers. Imagine, also, that after days of being open, you still haven’t had a single patron, and you’re starting to worry. Finally, a week after opening, someone cautiously approaches the door and walks in. They look surprised to find a restaurant, and go on to explain, “I was wondering what was in here – there’s no sign out front, and the building is completely blank!”

A restaurant operating from a stark, blank building certainly sounds like a ridiculous scenario – what business owner would allow hundreds of potential customers to drive by their establishment without posting a sign to give the passersby an idea of what services were offered inside? It certainly sounds far-fetched in this context, but it’s something that many businesses are doing every day on the Internet.

If you own a business, you most likely already have a website, and you probably print the website address on your business cards and in your advertisements. However, most people fail to consider the thousands of potential customers “driving by” on the Internet every day. In fact, thanks to search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN, web surfers are actually a much better demographic than the random sampling of drivers whizzing by your establishment. Because Internet travelers so often use search engines as their starting point on the web, you can target those “passersby” who are seeking out the specific products and services your business offers, and who are eager and ready to patronize a company who can provide them with what they’re looking for. This is where Search Engine Optimization, or “SEO”, comes into play.

Search Engine Optimization is the process of orienting your business’s website so that it is positioned very early in search results for specific keywords and phrases. Keeping with the restaurant analogy, it’s certainly helpful to have your site come up if you search for, for example, “Keller’s Restaurant in Hatboro, PA”. However, an Internet user performing that search is probably already planning to eat at your restaurant, and may just need menu choices or directions. What about those people who are searching for “fine dining Hatboro” or “best vegetarian options Montgomery County”? Would your site show up clearly and early, or would it be buried among thousands of other results? Even worse, will one of your competitors’ sites show up on the first results page because they recognized the need for SEO and positioned their site to respond to these phrases?

The importance of Search Engine Optimization can’t be overstated. Recent estimates suggest that at least 90 million American homes and businesses have high speed Internet access, and that 72% of American adults are surfing the net on a regular basis. This means that literally millions of people are “driving by” your website every day. Do you have a sign out front?

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This entry was posted on Saturday, November 15th, 2008 at 9:22 pm and is filed under Search Engine Optimization. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.