Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a huge consideration for your business, making sure you are getting high organic rankings for the keywords most important to your business & industry. We all know that. But how do you find the right solution for you is a question that rarely has a simple answer. Here’s a few ways to go about it:
Take the time to find the right seo solution for your business!
- Hire an SEO firm
- Ignore SEO and just hope (not saying that’s a bad thing!)
- Bring it in-house
1. Hire an SEO firm: We’ve gone this route at previous companies with mixed results. It’s great to have a bunch of folks who do nothing but live and breathe SEO and the newest google algorithms, but you really need to do your homework when selecting a vendor. We hired one that built up so many bad (actually they were called ‘toxic’) links that we got nailed in a Panda update. Vendors can also start to get expensive. BUt if this option makes sense for you, great. Anyone have some solid recos, please comment!
2. Ignore SEO and just hope: Well, lots of people do this! Especially smaller businesses that simply don’t have the time, money or expertise to tackle it. If you are going to go this route, at least try to do the basics - include a title tag that describes your business, use your keywords in URLs and in your content, and try to be active on social media. Stick with the basics, run your business, and you’ll probably be in OK shape!
3. Bring it in-house: This is what we did after the Panda update of November 2012 bit one of the companies I worked with in the butt! And it was one of the best moves we made. Why? For one, we were able to hire, even in the SF Bay area, a full time person at or below what the major SEO vendors wanted to charge. So we’re able to build out our own experience and expertise from within, and have a dedicated resource that really knows our biz, and can continually coordinate with the content, PR and web groups to make sure all the great content produced is relevant and placed appropriately within the site. It took awhile but the Panda penalty was lifted, and SERPs started to roll back in and grow. Whew, that was one long sentence!
At Dasheroo, we take SEO seriously. Business dashboards is a competitive space and do not want to rely on buying tons of PPC and other media to drive our business. So we’re gonna keep it in-house. Remember it’s really all about creating content that your users will find valuable. So, ‘keeping it clean’ and never trying to game the SEO system, and investing time and energy into regular blog posts & social media updates. We’re also going to get everyone in our small, growing company to post as well; it brings a fresh voice and unique topics that provide a better experience for our users!
Whatever you do, especially if you fall into the category of hiring an SEO firm or investing in internal resources use tools like Moz ($99/month), Boostsuite and/or Google Webmaster Tools (free!) to get a good handle on the SEO health of your site!