It seems like a simple question. However, if you’re familiar with how complex and changeable search engine algorithms are, not to mention the internet marketing industry as a whole, the question becomes more complicated. The easy answer, of course, is yes, SEO does matter. This assumes that all other factors are equal. In the real world, this is rarely the case.
“No matter how good my SEO is, I’m not on the first page of Google search results.”
This is a common complaint from small business owners and can be a problem for web designers who work hard to construct a well-coded and attractive website. How does this situation arise? There are actually a number of factors which are within the power of the website administrator to remedy website search engine performance issues:
- Keyword Optimization – This can be tricky, especially if the web design company doesn’t have someone with strong content authoring skills or if the client writes their own content. It involves not simply a repetition of desired keywords, but the usage of keywords within phrases which conform to natural language patterns.
- Meta Content – Meta content, or content about content which is invisible to the average visitor, is extremely important. It includes properly labeling links and images as well as providing a concise meta description which uses keywords effectively.
- Well-written Content – Leaving aside the issue of keyword usage for a moment, search engines are getting more sophisticated at text analysis. You need to ensure that your text content is professionally written (i.e. is not obviously stock content or written in the style of a personal blog) and uses proper grammar and syntax.
Would advertising improve my search performance?
If you perform a Google search, you’ll notice a yellow box at the top of the search results. Those are advertisements based on your search terms. So, in a sense, advertising can improve search performance. However, I’ve heard many people say they never click those links. If you’re talking about organic search results, the answer isn’t so clear. If ads don’t lead to conversions (people completing some action such as filling out a form or purchasing a product, etc.) then the ad probably won’t help much. However, if you use ads in conjunction with other tools, such as well-constructed landing pages, then they can lead to improved results in searches.
Lastly, if all you do is create ads without modifying content on your website or using landing pages or other tools, then there’s a very high likelihood that your performance in organic (that is, based solely on how the search engine algorithm scores your website) search results will not improve at all.
Does social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) improve search results?
Short answer – not very much. However, social media is often used as a sort of 21st century ‘word-of-mouth’ marketing tool. For small businesses, they can be extremely useful and inexpensive tools by which to interact with customers and provide a very personalized experience. The drawback is that social media rarely translates to improvements in search engine results.
PageRank and why it matters
The best way to think of PageRank is that it’s a popularity contest. Specifically, it is a score derived from how many links to your website there are on other websites. The reasoning behind it is that the more links there are to your website on other legitimate websites, the ‘better’ or ‘more relevant’ your website is and, correspondingly, the higher your PageRank. However, not all links are equal. For example, if your website has a lot of links from a number of websites with low traffic and your direct competitor has one or two links from high traffic websites (excluding posts on social media profiles), your competitor might end up with a higher PageRank.
At the moment, it’s better to have a high PageRank than it is to have top-notch SEO when it comes to performance in Google search results. Essentially, this means that a website with a high PageRank and mediocre SEO can outperform a website with outstanding SEO and a mediocre PageRank. This is likely not a permanent condition, since Google adjusts its search algorithm regularly to prevent manipulation of search results. However, PageRank is the mainstay of the Google search engine and will be a major factor for the foreseeable future.
Does Google and other search engines favor large companies over small companies?
Since PageRank and similar algorithms are such an important factor in search results, it’s believed that search engines favor large companies to the detriment of small companies. Hence you sometimes hear that major advertisers do better than small companies which don’t have large advertising budgets. This is not quite accurate. Large companies tend to be more well-known than small ones and, as a result, receive higher traffic and have a higher PageRank. There are some notable examples which illustrate that bigger is not always better: Perez Hilton’s celebrity gossip website outperforms In Touch Weekly’s website by a significant amount despite being a smaller business operation. Wikipedia is frequently highly listed in search results, despite having a small number of employees (though it does have a very large number of volunteer contributors).
As these two examples illustrate, PageRank doesn’t necessarily correspond to organizational size or wealth. This being said, large companies with deep pockets generally have an easier time establishing a high PageRank than small businesses.
What’s a small business owner to do?
- Go local – Large companies may have an advantage when it comes to web searches on confined to a particular region. While your bicycle repair shop (for example) might not perform well in searches with the keywords ‘bicycle repair’, you might have better luck with ‘Tampa bicycle repair’ or ‘Carrollwood bicycle repair’.
- Get specific – By focusing on specific products or brands, you should find that your website is more relevant in web searches than other sites, even those of large companies.
- Diversify – Don’t just rely on Google or Bing. By employing a number of tools (social media, SEO, print, etc.) in combination, you can increase your reach much more effectively than simply focusing on SEO and Google search results.
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