By: Seomul Evans
Submitted: 2009-02-10 03:07:32 | Word Count: 638
There’s a common misconception that SEO is an after market enterprise. Many businesses choose to consult with SEO companies only after their websites are built, after their marketing campaigns are designed, and after everyone else involved in marketing strategy has built a consensus with one another. The problem with that is that SEO becomes exponentially more difficult once websites are built and strategies are concretized.
It becomes both more costly and more time consuming for the SEO expert and the business. If management instead made SEO a part of the conversation from the very beginning, seeking buy in from all departments and interested parties before anything else happened, SEO could potentially be a relatively simple and hassle free process. Here are some other reasons to consider SEO while your business is still on the ground floor.
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1. SEO Education
When an SEO expert is brought in early, he or she has the opportunity to educate project managers and all other vendors on the process of SEO. He or she can talk about the importance of things like URL structure, site architecture, and functionality issues. Many project managers and other vendors may not understand how those things affect search engine friendliness, and they will be much more likely to do things the right way the first time if they understand why they’re doing it the way they’re being asked to do it.
Some of your employees may also wonder why your business is choosing to do organic search engine marketing rather than Pay Per Click (PPC) since PPC is less time consuming and provides increased traffic faster. After all, why go through all the trouble of natural SEO if there’s a more efficient way to increase traffic and sales? Be sure to explain the drawbacks of PPC while explaining the advantages of organic SEO. These concerns and questions are valid. Be sure to address them thoroughly.
2.SEO Training
If the website is built to be search engine friendly from the very beginning, then content managers and site maintainers can be trained how to update regularly with fresh and relevant content. On site optimization then becomes a regular part of site maintenance. If you design the website without SEO and then redesign it for optimization purposes, you will then have to retrain your content managers.
3.SEO is a Top Down Commitment
In order to make SEO work for your business, you simply must have commitment to the process on every level, and no level is more important than the highest. If your highest executives and managers don’t buy in to the process then you’re simply not going to get anyone else to buy in either. The most important thing you can do is to let everyone know the advantages of considering SEO from the very beginning of your building process. Each person who has a vested interest in SEO should understand how crucial it is to have a website that is search engine friendly and optimized.
SEO is a time intensive, labor intensive, meticulous process that you can either choose to do with existing employees or by hiring an outside agency. The most important thing to remember is that SEO should be in the forefront of your mind and on the table during every conversation as you plan your website and your marketing strategies.
You’ll end up costing yourself even more time and energy in the long run if you choose to worry about SEO after you’ve taken care of everything else. Taking everything apart and putting it back together after optimization can cost you traffic and sales, neither of which any business can afford to lose.
Educate and train your employees, and do whatever it takes to get buy in as you start the process. You’ll love the results you see.
