There are several reasons why many businesses with websites would consider having their website optimized for performance.Do you remember a few years ago when websites where mostly just text and images and you hardly had much interaction with a website except to click the contact page ?
Some few years later came the advent of shopping carts and terms like web 2.0 as well as all the modern day terms like social networks ,cloud computing and mobile smart phones phones etc
The world of SEO has been around for several years now but most people do not have an understanding of what exactly it encompasses and many carelessly assume that it has to do with meta tags,site titles and content tags etc.I really don't blame people who think this way because i myself did think in a similar pattern a few years back before i came to the light.
As i mentioned earlier there is a dozen of reasons why your company must implement SEO and SEM solutions so as to be competitive on the online world and make your website serve its true purpose i.e "selling your products/services ! , increasing your leads ! expanding your client base.. etc !"
That is the true purpose of a website.
Back in the days many small to medium companies here in SA invested heavily in having developers build them a shopping cart and open internet merchant accounts etc thinking that this would ultimately boost their business online.What most companies where not aware of is that a few years back(trust me its way better now) most people in SA where very skeptical about this whole online transactions and would prefer to have a walk in for their intended purchase than to process the transaction online.Most companies implemented expensive functionality but still made very little or no sales through their online cart.Why did this happen ??
Possible reasons include not being able to drive enough traffic to your site , little or no advertising to propel descent user volumes , lack of transparency or call to action within your site ,poorly structured or confusing site and a few other reasons made websites under achieve their intended purpose.
With SEO and SEO we can now address the following problems that we used to have :
- Do you offer a service but don't know how to increase your sales or leads ?
- Do you want to target clients in different provinces in South Africa or international clients but you dont know how to do it in the most cost effective manner?
- Do you want to track how much money your business makes online through Ads that you create ?
- Do you have a new or existing company brand /logo that you want to promote or increase exposure ?
- You have a website but it does not show up on the first page of google search results but its supposed to?
- You want to run a cost effective PPC campaign but you dont have the expertise or time ?
- You have specials or promotions that you runbut you are not getting enough responses or exposure ?
Your Company will reap the benefits of :
1)Reach - target any province, country, continent or custom business areas where you conduct business
2)Relevance - your ADs are only relevant to what users are searching and wont show if irrelevant
3)Return On Investment- Since your Ads are relevant , only potential clients will respond if they are interested hence increasing your reputation and further reaping the rewards of your online campaigns
I hope this article will help some of you understand why so many SA companies have decided to do online campaigns and paid search techniques to increase their profitability.I will write another article to clearly explain the key differences between SEO and SEM and the benefits of implementing both of them.
Cheers.
