Does SEO Work For Professional Service Businesses?

    CHICAGO, IL, November 10, 2017 /24-7PressRelease/ -- I have heard people say that SEO is the art and science of being seen and found when others are looking for what you provide. Simple examples are a person looking for a DUI attorney, a dentist, or a pest control service. However, those are just examples of people looking for a professional services business. Let's say someone is considering buying a turtle or tortoise for their child, one of the first things they would probably do is go to Google and search turtle or tortoise to learn more and become educated. That is why we use Google - because we can find what we are looking for! We use Google and the search engines because they help us every day to learn and become more educated. I believe that Google truly wants to help people and deliver the best results and information so that we continue to use Google. You can read more about this by searching for Google's philosophy.

According to Wikipedia - SEO "is the process of affecting the visibility of a website or a web page in a web search engine's unpaid results--often referred to as "natural", "organic", or "earned" results". I think that is a good definition. If you are a professional SEO consultant, you more than likely have read the MOZ's SEO: The Beginner's Guide to Search Engine Optimization. They provide a more technical definition of SEO.

Why is SEO Important?
Okay, so we have learned about SEO, and talked about what SEO is. Now let's talk about why it is important. Why is search engine optimization important? The question is - how do people find products and services they are looking for in today's world? Google was founded in 1998, so how did we find things before Google and the internet? We used to use the phone book and the yellow pages. Before the internet the only way to find anything was to ask your friends and family, look in the local newspaper, or use a phone book. So how do people find things like local businesses to help them when they are looking for a product or service in this day and age? According to Vistaprint the top two ways people find you are through word of mouth and online. When people start online, they then go to your website to check you out. Vistaprint further discusses the importance of your website for your business. They state that websites encourage trust and establish your brand and a poor website can actually have a negative effect on your business. Of the 2,000 people they surveyed, they found that 34% stated that they would not shop with a business that did not have a website, and 45% stated that they would be unlikely to buy from a business with a poorly designed website. Other findings from Vistaprint found that online reviews are very important - 50% of the respondents stated that bad online reviews would stop them from buying from a business.

Does SEO work?
The short answer is YES! We mostly work with professional service businesses - lawyers, dentists, plumbers, contractors, and pest control companies, etc. I can tell you that our clients get 50-75% of their new business from the internet and in some cases, we have clients that get 90% of their NEW clients / customers from the internet. However, SEO alone does NOT always work by itself. Depending on what you are trying to be seen and found for and the level of competition in the area that you are trying to get top visibility in - you may NEED more than good SEO to compete. To get the very BEST results and TOP visibility online we will also ALWAYS recommend that our clients get listed in the very BEST online directories for their niche or industry when they are available. In addition, to get the very BEST results and VISIBILITY online, you may need to also advertise with Google AdWords. Google isn't Google because Google AdWords doesn't work. When done properly, Google AdWords works very well for lead generation. At the time of this writing, Google is a $74 billion dollar a year company. It works.

How Do You Get Top Rankings Organically or Locally?
That is the very first question people ask. How do you do it? As we discussed, Google's mission is to help people. To provide their customers with relevant and useful search results. Again, that is why we use Google and the search engines because we can find what we are looking for.

Google themselves at a high level will tell you that ranking well is all about content that helps people solve problems and helps people find what they are looking for. In addition, Google looks at how popular this content is online. This is how many external links (other websites or blogs) that point to that content. To get top rankings ORGANICALLY, you need GREAT content and GREAT popularity.

How can I rank well organically / naturally?
Content - If you are truly an expert and one of the BEST at what you do, writing or creating GREAT content should be easy. Basically you need to figure out how you can add more value than the competition. Google looks at original content, unique content and relevant content as added value, etc. However, Google also looks at things like original insight(s), research and analysis as well as videos and reviews as added value. To get TOP rankings you need to figure out how your website can offer the MOST value (help) to someone that is looking for or needs help with what you offer.

Links - Google looks at how popular your website or content is based on the number of other external websites that link back to your website. These are also known as backlinks. For example if I am writing an article on search engine optimization (SEO), and in the article I reference the best SEO people I have just created a backlink back to my website. The more links your website or content has, the more popular it is online. The more popular it is, the better it will rank. If the content of your website is equal, then the deciding majority factor will be how popular your website is online **THIS IS WHERE 99.9% of internet marketing people fail. It takes hard work and effort to find places that it would make sense for your website or blog to be listed on other blogs or websites naturally. It is also a manual process that takes a lot of time and creativity. Often times links are created as citations to original content. In the Google Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide, Google states - (1) Promoting your site and having quality links could lead to increasing your site's reputation. You cannot just PUBLISH content, you need to PUBLISH & PROMOTE it!!

How can I rank locally within the local Google Maps? Along with the above, we believe that reviews are a LARGE part of ranking locally within Google Maps. It just makes sense. The more positive reviews a business has, the more trust they should earn online. Generating reviews takes time, hard work and effort - you have to earn it!

You can learn more about SEO and lead generation @ Dragon Internet Marketing!

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