[My Biggest Mistake] Are YOU the Key to Your Internet Strategy?

In today’s competitive environment, if we want to generate new business, we need a strong Internet presence. Plenty of companies out there are willing to help. Our challenge is determining what each company offers in terms of website development and search engine optimization (SEO), and how much their expertise is really worth.

When I was looking for a website design/SEO firm for Holiday Termite & Pest Control, Springfield, Va., I got excited hearing about how a great site could help me build my business. How much that site would cost varied widely, however: I got quotes ranging from three digits to nearly five. How to decide? I went with a company whose pitch led me to believe they would produce the results I wanted — moving me up in search rankings, enticing prospective customers to choose my site over my competitors’ sites and providing me with progress reports that would help me get a clear picture of how my site fit into my overall business strategy. Unfortunately, the company delivered very little, if any, of this.

That’s when I decided to take matters into my own hands. I let the web firm go and began educating myself on website design and SEO best practices. Here’s what I discovered: By observing the search results of key terms I wanted to target, I was able to improve my Internet presence significantly. In fact, my strategies have netted far more business than the web firm I was paying.

I’m not suggesting that every business owner become a web designer or begin managing their own Internet presence. It may not be right for you or your business. What I am suggesting is that you make sure you are knowledgeable about this aspect of business development so that you can either build and manage your Internet presence yourself or make an informed choice when you select an outside firm to manage these aspects for you.

Here’s what I’ve learned:

• You can avoid paying for organic rankings. If you find that services like Yelp, Google Local, HomeAdvisor and Angie’s List (to name just a few) rank on the first page of your desired searches, cater to them. Claim your free listings and fill them out in their entirety. Having your company show up several times on a local search increases your Internet presence significantly.
• You don’t have to be the best on the Web — just a step ahead of your local competitors. I understand that it’s the “World Wide Web,” but I only need to reach people in my northern Virginia market. I look at it this way: A local Internet search is like a huge pondfull of fish. I’m looking instead to fill my lead bucket from a small fishing hole — targeting a very specific local market through deeper connections. This is another reason I chose to go it alone. I concentrate all of my website strategies on targeted local efforts. I also stay apprised of what my competitors are doing. I study their SEO successes and find a way to use this information to my benefit.
• Customers can offer insights to help you anticipate prospects’ behavior. The dialogue you have with your established customers can reveal common navigation strategies as well as important search terms and topics you should consider including on your site. In keeping with my previous analogy, your customers can tell you what kind of bait to put on the hook as you drop your line into the metaphorical fishing hole. For example, I asked one of my customers how she found us. She explained that she had a new baby and conducted careful research to identify a local company that would keep her family’s safety in mind. This conversation spurred me to write a blog titled “Why Mothers Choose Professional Pest Control Companies,” which has become a strong draw for new prospects.
• Deeper is better. As I keep tabs on the activity surrounding my site, I come back again and again to this basic truth: People want information. I am happy to deliver. I have blogs written on everything my customers ask about and anything else I would like them to know. My blog adds depth to my site. In other words, the site may look to be only a few pages, but it is several pages deep. This depth helps us achieve two things: It increases the number of times Holiday Termite & Pest Control comes up in keyword searches, and it encourages visitors to delve more deeply into our site, which further engages them and improves the strength of our site (websites with a lot of activity rank more highly in searches).
• Reviews are vital to website success. One of the most important things I’ve discovered through my website adventures is that, once people find you through a search, they seek assurances of your company’s reputation and performance. Make sure your customers are reviewing you on review sites — Yelp, HomeAdvisor, Angie’s List, etc. Positive local reviews can become a very powerful tool for turning your Internet activity into sales.
   

Want to learn more about making your site all it can be? Google offers a free online guide, “Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide,” that’s a good starting point, and I frequently refer to Yoast.com. Do your own searches of keywords/key phrases that you want to target and come up with some “good sense” ideas of how to gain ground in your local market. You’ll find that it doesn’t take long to uncover success strategies you can put into action right away.

As told to Donna DeFranco.