Clueless. An apt description. And not so very long ago, I was pretty clueless about SEO and how important it is for business and, more importantly, for business growth. But now I know better. SEO is, quite simply, smart business practice.
SEO is reality. If you want people to buy what you’re selling – I don’t care if it’s cruises, ponies or marketing consulting services, paying attention to SEO should be a critical component of your marketing strategy.
Fact: Only 90 some percent of people go online to find products or services that they want to buy – and if they can’t find you there, dude, you’re on your way to being out of business.
Back to me. After taking some time off when I had the twin terrorists, I was slightly stir-crazy and ready to kick butt again. Never mind that my husband was glad for some help with carrying the family financial load and my colleagues were chomping at the bit. Oh, and I’m a little bit Type A (shhhh) – and don’t like to mess around. I wanted to grow the agency and was ready for warp speed kind of action. I also wanted to be more effective at what we were doing for our clients because – when it all comes down to it, the proof is in the pudding, right? If they do what we tell them to do – and it works – we all win. And if they trust us and don’t see results, we get the axe. And I don’t know about you, but we’re not in the business of aiming to fail. Oh, and the crummy economy and scarcity of marketing budgets contributed a teensy bit to our collective motivation to do more, and do better, and make sure that what we did worked.
So I was on a mission. I started paying attention. Started listening to people who are way smarter than I am. And there are tons of them, btw. And then I started learning about the importance of search and how to integrate it into what we were doing – for V3 and for our clients. I can’t say this without sounding like a cheesy infomercial, but I’m going to say it anyway – it changed everything about our business.
Learning about SEO and using it – on our website, on the blog, for our clients – totally changed the way we do business and how we allocate and focus our efforts. And it allowed us to reap some very real rewards. More business, happier clients, more fun doing what we all love doing. Score!
SEO can help small businesses level the playing field and compete against bigger businesses with bigger budgets. Knowing some basics about what to do on your website, how to utilize local search to your benefit (it all starts with local search, you know) and, if you’re blogging (or want to be), knowing how to write effectively from an SEO standpoint, can make all the difference in the world. The difference between having no one visit and read your blog or check out your website and having hundreds of people a day (or more) come check out what you’ve got going on is like the difference between sitting on the bench, waiting for some action, or playing in the doggone Super Bowl. Cheeze-o-rama – but you get my point.
Again, I can’t even write this post without sounding like an infomercial and that’s not my intent. I’m trying to tell you my story so that you realize that I didn’t always know about this stuff and might have even been where you are now. Feeling like there’s so much to learn and having no idea where to start or where to find the time (or the money). I still have a lot to learn – we all do – and there are never enough hours in a day, you know the drill.
And when it appears as though I’m just gabbing it up on Twitter or Facebook every day or every evening, when normal people (whatever that is) are working or doing fun stuff, or watching TV or riding their bikes (like Gini Dietrich), I’m also checking out links and reading blogs and soaking up information from really smart people – and doing all I can to quench my apparently never-ending thirst for knowledge. And I’m constantly focusing on how to improve what we do and what we can deliver for our clients. And the more I learn, the more successful I am and the more successful my team is – and the more our agency grows. I can’t be any more of a straight shooter than that. I worship at the altar of the SEO gods – for good reason. It’s not the only thing you can do to grow your business, but it’s a really, really important component.
SEO can make a difference in your business. That’s not an opinion, people, it’s a fact. If you want some references who can attest to that, let me know and we’ll hook you up with some of those aforementioned really smart people. People like Gabriella Sannino, or Lisa Barone, or Danny Sullivan, or Travis Wright or Lyle Hawkins – and those are just a few people that we stalk and learn from on a regular basis. If you’re not not doing the same, stop what you’re doing and get to know them. Now. Trust me on this one.
So there. And while I don’t know it all, I know how to put on a doggone good webinar. And if you want to learn more about SEO come join me and Erika Napoletano, a/k/a Redheadwriting, Mike Belasco and Alysson Fergison as we put on a webinar series with our friends at Thinking Bigger Business Media. The cost of this three webinar series is just $77 and if you use discount code sk976 you can get a 10% discount.
Isn’t your business worth a lousy $70? If you think so, come and join us. You’ll be glad you did. And if you participate and don’t learn a ton, I’ll eat a pile of you-know-what that those doggone ponies of Redheadwriting’s leave all over the yard. And post the pictures on YouTube.
Register now. Use Discount Code sk976 and save 10%. See you there – at least I hope so!
Shelly Kramer is a Principal Analyst and Founding Partner at Futurum Research. A serial entrepreneur with a technology centric focus, she has worked alongside some of the world’s largest brands to embrace disruption and spur innovation, understand and address the realities of the connected customer, and help navigate the process of digital transformation. She brings 20 years’ experience as a brand strategist to her work at Futurum, and has deep experience helping global companies with marketing challenges, GTM strategies, messaging develoment, and driving strategy and digital transformation for B2B brands across multiple verticals. Shelly’s coverage areas include Collaboration/CX/SaaS, platforms, ESG, and Cybersecurity, as well as topics and trends related to the Future of Work, the transformation of the workplace and how people and technology are driving that transformation. A transplanted New Yorker, she has learned to love life in the Midwest, and has firsthand experience that some of the most innovative minds and most successful companies in the world also happen to live in “flyover country.”
