Last week I had an interesting conversation with a friend of mine. We were talking about websites and being found in search engines. He said that he was being found for his search term pretty easily. I asked what his search term was and it was something that, in my opinion, really had nothing to do with what his business really was. However, he was right; if one put that specific search term in he came up in the top 10 for it.
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I then asked him what search terms (keywords) he’d like to be found for as it pertained to what he really did. He wrote down 3 terms, and then started to search for them. His business name never came up for any of them in the first 10 searches, which means the first 100 entries for most people, including himself. He even put the name of the city in and didn’t show up. He found that disappointing and wondered why he wasn’t being shown for those terms and found for others. He also said that he seemed to get phone calls from people who were looking for her services, so he assumed things were going well online.
When we talked some more he realized that the calls he was getting were coming from a local source, mainly the local chamber, and the people calling him were finding him through their website. Although that’s not a bad thing, and truthfully it’s one reason why I’d recommend every business join at least one chamber, it also led him to realize that he wasn’t being found on his own merits. Anyone outside of the immediate area would never find him.
The thing that “search”, or search engine marketing, does for you is that it opens you and your business up to a wider audience that might be looking for what you do. If my friend was willing to only market his business to the 300 businesses in our area and no one else he might do just fine. But if he wanted to market his business to the entire county or even the state then there were major steps he was going to have to take with his website.
Have you thought about what you’d like the reach of your website or blog to be? Have you taken the steps necessary to give yourself an opportunity to compete? Do you know if you have or not? Let’s talk.
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