SEO and SEM were familiar subjects to me because I study IT. I found it fascinating that most of the Finnish companies settle down for using only SEM instead of SEO. It's important to know how to make your company more visible on google (or some other tools) search with SEO because more and more companies are paying annual SEM-fees. Using only SEM is not enough in the future, your company will more likely drown into many other companies. At the moment, I'm coding, building and developing websites for one small local car repair store that has paid this SEM-fee. The current websites are not effective at all and that's why this website doesn't appear on SEO search. I hope I can make a difference for this car repair store's website.
There are some easy basic ways to build an effective SEO and I want to introduce you 10 easy steps for it:
1. Research your keywords
Understand the language that your customers tend to use when they’re looking for a business like yours.
2. Optimize your site and content
Be sure you include:
- The name of your company or business
- The address where your business is located
- Your primary phone number
- A geo sitemap
3. Get your business on Google Local
Local Google+ pages can help you communicate with your customers and allow you to get more exposure.
4. Create or claim your local listings
We already covered Google, but it’s important to also create a listing on Bing, Yahoo Local, and other local directories.
5. Be consistent
Use the same details on your site, on your social media profiles, and on local directories or review sites.
6. Ask for genuine reviews
Make it easy for your customers. For example, if they don’t have a Google account to leave a Google+ review, or they don’t want to use their Facebook profile for Yelp, they may abandon the whole idea. But if you give them several options, you’ll get more results.
7. Optimize your social profiles
You need to make sure that every social profile you have includes your physical location (including city and state), along with your business or store name, and a URL back to your website.
8. Local outreach
Drive attention to your local business getting other people to talk about and link to you. Participate at local events, networking events, scholarships or host events in your community.
9. Go mobile
Customers are often on the move and looking for you on their devices.
10. Analyze and monitor your results
Use Google Analytics to analyze the organic traffic and see if it’s improving. If you are doing it right, you should start seeing the traffic going up within weeks from starting to work on your local SEO optimization.
If you are interested to read the entire article, you can read it here:
Thanks for sharing your own experiences! It may be that many companies wants to concentrate on SEM because it is not so time consuming and with it you get instant results. But like Terhi Aho told in the chapter 4 video that in Finland companies haven't really realized the importance of SEO, but maybe some day it will be considered more important in here too.
VastaaPoistaReally good and interesting blog. I heard about this the very first time. I have learned something new about this subject.
VastaaPoistaThis is really nice to know. As I get annoyed quite often on advertisement that pop-up on my phone while I'm trying to search for something, I now also understand the reason behind this. As companies "Go mobile", they will also be found on unnecessary places. Even Instagram has adverts now, where it says "sponsored". Do you others like this kind of marketing?
VastaaPoistaI like that this is really simple and easy to read. There could be at least one picture though that it would look even more interesting.
VastaaPoistaIt was interesting to read about you and your experiences. I hope that you really can make a difference for the car repair store's website! Best of luck to you.
Tuulia, thank you for this informative blog. I like the structure of your blog: first telling who you are and what is your experience. The list you show here seems like a great tool for anyone who is interested in learning how to perform good SEO. I like that you represent your own thinking about how not all the companies use SEO, but rather only focus on SEM.
VastaaPoistaThank you for this reading experience,
Ilkka