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In this recession, almost every business is looking for ways to either cut back on expenses, or my favorite, increase revenue. One way to increase chances of your own solvency is to diversify and have multiple ways to generate income or leads. Online there are many ways for potential clients to find you and become customers. An often-overlooked or misunderstood tool for doing this is search engine optimization or SEO.

Part of SEO is the process of creating content and links to your web site. The idea is that when someone types a word or phrase relating to your business into a search engine, your business comes up high on the list. You want to rank in the top 10 web sites – because they are the sites that people go to most.

Unlike paid advertisements, each page of your site or each blog post or press release is a chance for people to get information about you. Or to find you. Unlike paid advertisements the work you do is permanent – it doesn’t stop helping you once you stop paying (or working). The SEO work you do now will still benefit you in two years from now or long after the recession ends.

The best part about SEO is that it is low cost and very effective. The return on your investment over the long-term is excellent. You can learn many of the techniques or pay professionals to work with you in determining and implementing the best strategy. There is a learning curve (some simply outsource a lot of the more mundane pieces like adding your site to directories) but the payoff over time is worth the effort.

Most companies are already ranking well in search engines for their brand name and branded terms. For example: we rank #1 for the term OrangeSoda. Obviously that doesn’t help us if someone wants search engine optimization services who have never heard of our business name. If they go to Google and type in those words we want them to find us. We want to rank well for each of the services we provide.

Many businesses do not rank well for phrases that people search on (there is demand for) that relates to their business. This is intended to capture people (or other businesses) who do not know about you but are looking for the products or services you provide.

People are actively looking for information online and are researching the marketplace to solve a problem or find a product. Ideally you are producing well-optimized content that educates potential clients so when they’re ready to make a decision, they find you. You can also build trust so they consider giving you their business.

As you rank well for phrases in search engines, you’ll get more people coming to your site. You’ll have more ways to reach them. You’ll have search results with a diversity of links from credible sources. SEO can also help you fine tune your marketing and messaging.

The Internet is dynamic and almost real time so it’s a great way to keep a pulse on business and your potential clients. Just using a keyword tool or a tool like SpyFu can help you understand what people are looking for and who your competitors are. Then you can apply SEO to be high on the list of businesses that provide those services.

Every business and web site is different and their SEO needs can be basic or more advanced. Here is a basic outline of making a search engine optimized web site:

• Identify terms that people are searching for that relate to your business.
  

• Determine the demand and competition for those terms.

• See where you rank in the top search engines for those terms

• Look at your site structure and making sure it’s optimal for search engines to find and index each web page of your web site.

• Each page is a chance for someone to find your site

• Keep building keyword-rich content.

• Get links to your various web pages (content) using keywords as the text of the link.

This is an ongoing process of fine tuning and building your web site with valuable content that search engines. Every good SEO company should evaluate your site and come up with ways to help booster your rankings. This will increase traffic to your site and your visibility online. It’s a wise investment and one that every business with a web site should consider – especially in rough economic times.

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