Questions you often hear asked these days when it comes to Marketing are things like ….

When will we be listed on the first page results of a Google search?
What’s our ranking right now?
How is our SEO doing this quarter?
What can we do to get noticed online?

Ranking high in search engine results is no doubt an important goal of business owners. Ranking high can mean a lot of things depending on how you look at it. New businesses like to see themselves moving closer and closer to the top of search results. Established companies want to ensure they keep their place on page one. Others want more sales.

Regardless of your short or long term SEO ranking strategy, the bottom line is still …

Profitability

You are in business because you love what you do, but you also want to make money and be successful. The only reason you wouldn’t be is if you are a non-profit. So, it’s been said that simply moving up the search engine results ladder is the key to increasing profit margins. Perhaps it is, but it might not be a direct correlation at all.

Ok, for those of you who don’t know what all the fuss is about SEO ranking, let’s briefly discuss the basics. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It’s simply the process of proactively affecting the visibility of natural or organic search results without paying for it. SEO comes down to optimizing your website in such a fashion that Google thinks of you as an authority on the subject being searched.

Optimizing your website online,for example, can mean:

• Using only the best content
• Creating tags for titles, blogs, images
• Working with the right Web Hosting
• Staying modern with the overall Design Flow
• Displaying one main Call To Action
• Coding your site for performance and speed

Having the right SEO translates to consumers finding your business without knowing you existed in the first place. Let me stress that SEO is vitally important in case you can’t tell so far. However, SEO isn’t an automatic fix for profit problems in your business.

Besides focusing solely on optimizing your business website, make sure you pay attention to the these important factors.

People buy because they like what you are selling

Create products and services that are valuable to consumers. Quality and reliability are still highly favored by shoppers. People tend to stick with businesses who don’t let them down or try to fake them into buying. Providing value will allow for lots of repeat buyers and those same buyers will tell their friends.

That means free advertising for you. That’s an added BONUS.

Control costs and stay efficient

Keep a watchful eye on both fixed and variable expenses when it comes to how you operate your business. Ranking high on Google while throwing money out the window in other areas of your business can spoil success. Be frugal with your advertising budget. Use dependable but fairly priced vendors and suppliers. Gross sales are pretty cool when extremely high, but net profit is what counts.

Maintain your Brand Reputation

A solid and respected reputation can’t be bought or stolen. It has to be earned and protected. Checkered pasts of celebrities and politicians follow them wherever they go. Pristinely clean images of highly respected companies is a rare thing. Build a brand that buyers will absolutely adore and follow after.

Be Charitable and bring Positivity to our World

Profit and sales are critical, but so is giving to the society around you. Let your business be known for caring sincerely about the community they operate in. Besides, it’s fun to give. When you give, you end up receiving more back than you actually offered in the first place. People notice when you care about them and the community they live in.

Continuously Innovate, Create, and think Ahead

Make sure that even if you are super successful, you don’t get stagnant and settle for mediocrity. The enemy of future success is the satisfaction of what you have already achieved. Always look to produce the next genius idea that your target market will want and buy. Refine your craft. Invest in research and development. Surround yourself with the best talent you can afford.

Keeping these things relevant in your business together with building a solid SEO strategy will hopefully bring you lots of sales and the joy of future success.