To me, there seems to be a mindset that all you need to do to get a top ranking on the search engines is throw some money at an SEO (Search Engine Optimization) service. They’ll install some software and put some code on your site and things will be great. Probably not true, but that’s my impression.
There are many professional SEO services who can provide an excellent return on your investment – but before proceeding with an SEO campaign, I would recommend having the following solidly in place.
1) Create a beautiful and compelling web site
What’s the use of a #1 ranking generating tons of traffic if everyone bails after one second on your site? Actually, you can’t get a #1 ranking without a compelling site as visitor time on site is a key factor in determining rankings.
2) Content, Content, Content
Relevant content that’s useful to your audience will keep them coming back to your site for more. The primary benefit of this is that it keeps your audience engaged with your company. As it turns outs, search engines like fresh content and audience engagement. If you don’t have time to devote to this, or hate writing, I would hire someone to generate this content for you BEFORE you invest in SEO services.
3) Be organized
Make sure your site is clearly organized so visitors can easily find their way to what interests them most. Again, this feeds audience engagement, but guess what? If you organize your site this way, you will also create logical points of entry and distinct topical sections and pages that make it easy to build an effective SEO campaign.
See the pattern? Put first things first.
In all of the above examples, serving your audience first also sets you up for success on the search engines. If you don’t have these in place, a reliable SEO is going to have you invest in these as a part of their service anyway – if they don’t you’re wasting your money.