The Art of SEO: More is More
One of the questions we always get is “Do you do SEO?” It’s usually asked as if it was a buzzword picked up casually in conversation, something that closer resembles a Holy Grail than a marketing discipline.
In short, the answer is yes, we do SEO.
For the uninitiated, SEO is an acronym, standing for Search Engine Optimization. It’s essentially the practice of getting search engines to rank your content higher than someone else’s. With anything in marketing, this is a simple concept in theory, but the challenge lies in the actual execution.
While many businesses tend to gravitate towards traditional forms of (advertising, TV, radio, flyers, postcards, etc.), truly being able to defy the competition, even on a local level, requires being willing to invest in your online brand.
While a few years ago, it was highly possible to rank at the top with organic content, that time has long passed as larger corporations are stomping out the competition with their website game, social media presence, and monstrous paid advertising budgets.
So, if you’re a small or medium-sized business, how do you compete?
Focus Locally
Since our business is based in Illinois, we receive tons and TON of requests to rank under Chicago. Unless you are a large business, it’s probably not going to happen. The fact of the matter is that most industries are saturated to some sort of degree, and everyone wants the same thing. Aiming as high as the full city of Chicago is unrealistic in most cases.
But Chicago’s a big place, large enough where many of their neighborhoods are the size of full suburbs. For example, if your business is located in Irving Park, that can offer a large enough territory to get your business off the ground. This is actually a huge benefit to many brick-and-mortar businesses anyway because their customer base lives within a closer proximity, an obstacle that farther businesses will have to overcome.
In addition, the local competition is greatly reduced compared to the competition in the entire city of Chicago. Instead of being better than hundreds of other businesses, you only have to beat a handful.
Spread Your Tentacles
With the exceptions of Snapchat and TikTok, Rizzo Young Marketing LLC is on every single major social media platform, including Facebook, Google My Business, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. There are three reasons for this:
Different people use different platforms. This allows us to reach more people.
We’re a social media marketing company. If we weren’t on all of these platforms, there would undoubtedly be someone who doubts our abilities because we don’t have a listing on ABC platform.
SEO.
This last reason is most crucial for our current discussion. Instead of having one social media platform ranking on Google, we have multiple listings consuming page one.
Generally, these results won’t include one-off posts like the Twitter post featured towards the bottom. (though every once and a while we’ll be pleasantly surprised), but if they do, even better. By having a presence on every single platform, we’ve made it so that competitors or irrelevant results won’t come close to taking up our real estate.
More is More
On Monday, we shared a quote that said, “Content marketing is a commitment, not a campaign.” The art of SEO is rooted in this.
Sharing new content that’s relevant to your industry, services, and brand on a consistent basis is vital towards long-term SEO gain. Search engines are far less likely to pick up a Facebook page for a company that posted once six months ago as opposed to one that has posted every day this week. Being able to promote your content and drive engagement on a reoccurring schedule will encourage search engines to notice your content and see that other people find value in it.
Summary
SEO is not a one-and-done practice. It’s an effort that must be continually honed over time. Similar to anything else in life, putting time, money, and effort into your business’ SEO is a great way to winning out.
For help with enhancing your SEO, send us a message at RizzoYoungMarketing.com.