Marketing is changing; will your business change with it? Back when print media ruled, it was easy to be found by local customers by advertising in newspapers and phone books; and people happily used them to find what they needed.
In the new internet economy, your customers no longer need to be local; they can be from anywhere, as can your competition. If you only seek customers from those who already know about your business or who are nearby, you are excluding huge numbers of customers.
The magic of Google and other internet search engines is that they bring businesses and customers together. No more hard sell and mass advertising to mostly uninterested people. Now, customers who are looking specifically for what you can offer them are using the internet to find you. By the time they contact you, they are already interested in what you can do for them. And they can be located anywhere, not just in town. Of course, if Google can bring customers from distant points to your business, it can also bring your customers to distant competitors.
Small, local businesses can have more reach and influence than ever before by developing an online presence. But, for any of this internet magic to work, a website is just the beginning. It is necessary for your website to be found by potential customers. And to be found, your website should appear in the first few pages of search engine results. There is only one first page of search results so not every website can fit there.
Search Engine Optimization (or SEO) is a tried and true technique used for decades to assist sites in ranking higher than others. Landau Consulting, a New Jersey SEO company which does consulting in internet marketing and SEO services offers this infographic to show how to make your website get found instead of getting lost.
