There are honest steps that you can take to improve your SEO without spending a lot of money, and they are all explained in one of my previous posts. That is NOT what this post is all about.
In this post, I will be addressing the SEO experts that many local businesses pay on a monthly basis to improve their website’s ranking in Google.
Those SEO campaigns can be rather pricy, and if you stop paying those monthly fees, all of your previous campaigns that you paid for literally vanish. Some may take a few weeks while others will definitely disappear the minute you announce that you no longer wish to run those monthly SEO campaigns.
That’s the biggest issue that many small business owners are now faced with.
And, given the economical downturn suffered the past few years, many small business owners have had to re-distribute what little profits they’ve been able to make, while still others have had to stop a lot of “extras”, like paying for monthly SEO campaigns.
This they are doing in order to simply weather out these unprofitable past few years, and be able to stay in business.
Most SEO specialist provide their clients with a mixture of quality backlinks to their website. And, many of those backlinks can be from several websites that the SEO specialist actually owns or has full access to.
This makes it very easy for them to add and remove backlinks to their customer’s site whenever the need arises.
So, when a business owner announces they will no longer be running SEO campaigns… POOF! Like I mentioned earlier, those links VANISH, almost immediately.
The day of SEO specialist actually getting their customer’s sites to rank well in SERPs (search engine results page) with a mixture of quality backlinks, is slowly disappearing due to Google’s constantly updating their search scripts and how they rank websites.
This is why it is wise to explore the possibility of changing the type of campaigns a business owner should now be running in 2022, and beyond, is so important.
Many businesses can now gain “Google credit” from a mere mention of their business on another website. That’s where branding comes in.
The branding that we do for businesses, there is NO means of removing any work done once a campaign has been launched.
This means that you actually get to KEEP what you pay for, should you hire services here, …even if you only run one campaign.
I do NO own nor have full access to any of the media sites that I have been granted permission to submit content to.
Some of those sites allow an actual link to the site mentioned within a story, while others do not. BUT that mention on news sites that don’t allow a backlink, are actually granting your business a LOT more attention and credit from Google now, as a measure of your site’s popularity.
So, if you are sick and tired of paying for advertising that’s no longer working, and/or your drowning in the latest SEO tactics that always stops working shortly after applying them (if they even work anymore), then perhaps it’s time you give serious consideration to either setting up your own in-house media marketer to create campaigns for your business, or you can save the extra cost of yet another employee by hiring our branding service.
Not only will branding done right inadvertently help your site’s search engine ranking, but branding can also help you with brand recognition, and make it easier to manage the online reputation of your business, plus… actually gain you real buyers.
The real secret to a successful branding campaign is in the quality of the content that gets created about your business. Content such as:
- text content on news sites and popular blog sites,
- video content on popular video sites like YouTube and Vimeo,
- slideshow content, and even
- podcasts.
Any serious business owner can gain the attention to your business that you seek, simply by using branding, when it’s done right.
Big businesses have been jumping on board with branding in order to stand out.
So now, smaller business owners can do that same and best their competition by ranking better in SERPs.
Branding requires patients and creativity.
It is like the classic The Tortoise and The Hare fable: slow and steady wins the race.
There is no such thing as “instant” gratification when it comes to the popularity of a business or a website.
As the Forbes website clearly states:
Google’s search team realized a lot of people were using shady SEO tactics and building tons of backlinks from huge websites, so it fought back. You’d think a backlink from Forbes, one of the most trafficked sites in the world, would shoot you to the top of the ranks, but it doesn’t.
Source:
Published on 21 Sep 2020 by YEC Council Post on forbes.com
Now the quality of the content shared ABOUT your business is more important than that same site offering your website a backlink.
So, keep your content shared both unique and original. Don’t simply repeat word for word what you’ve already published on your own website.
Apparently, things such as images used with ALT tags, visual style, and the quality of the story are all measured by Google’s latest algorithm.
When done properly, this is said to make it possible to have your website set apart from your competition’s site.
Both advertising and SEO tactics that have been done (by simply offering many backlinks), they stop working the minute you stop paying for them.
On the other hand, branding lasts for as long as the many sites your content is shared on, continue to exist. And, it is said that Google loves longevity.
You also need to use target keywords relevant to your business, as they are important in the sense of how your content is created around them.
When used properly, can also assist you by providing your site with authority in your chosen niche (business).
Forbes suggests using what they call Ego Bait Strategy, as a method to gain more shares.
This would be your creating content that includes information that your target audience would provide.
Forbes claims that with the little effort that your target audience would put in to be part of your post, they will be more apt to share such an article once it has been published.
This idea has been offered to some local businesses in the past, who have chosen to ignore the advice.
Waste that tidbit of advice at the peril of your business, as I’m certain that your competition who may become serious about improving their brand’s awareness, may not.
Google has now published Webmaster guidelines, which provides you with Beginner SEO and Advanced SEO, and will serve to confirm what I have shared with you here.
Should you have any question(s) as to why SEO failed and how to fix it, please leave them in a comment below so that we can discuss this topic further.
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