Perhaps the biggest challenge in business is “discoverability.” That’s just a fancy term for your business getting found. If you’re a bricks and mortar operation, it might mean an eye-catching sign. If you’re a digital business or a business that has a digital presence (are there any businesses that don’t?), it means doing the work needed so that when customers are using the web they can find your site.
That concern is something I get asked about by clients all the time. They hear about Search Engine Optimization but don’t understand what it is or how to do it. I’ll preface this by saying I don’t profess to be an SEO expert. I can, however, get clients through the rudiments, take care of the technical basics, and, if our work shows results, bring in a resource to do the advanced stuff. So with that in mind, let’s spend a minute on how your business can be more discoverable.
You might find this odd, but the answer is simpler now than it was a few years ago. Many of the technical parts of SEO are no longer as important as they once were. What’s important is a recurring theme here in the screed: focus on your customers or prospects. Making your site content useful to a shopper will have the effect, in most cases, of being great SEO. What do I mean?
People search either to buy something, to find a place and get there, or to find information. The latter is why you do informational content (like this blog), the former are product pages, etc. Making every page of your site clear with respect to what question you’re answering or problem you’re solving with probably mean you’re using the words people (not robots) use to find answers. That’s good SEO because it is focused on user experience.
Yes, there are a couple of technical things you should do (good title tags is the main one) and you need to hope that people build links to your content (they will if it’s great!). But the most important thing you can do in order to enhance discoverability is to be useful and clear. For those of you who are hearing from SEO experts that want to charge you a fortune, you’re welcome (mail me – I’ll tell you where to send the check). For all of you, I hope that helped. Did it?
Consult Keith 