SEO Experts From Bozeman Share Tips for Getting Your Business Noticed.
We’ve all seen at least one of the Indiana Jones movies where the dashing professor Jones travels the world in search of adventure and some historically important relic. Along his adventures he discovers more about himself, falls in love, and eventually saves history. All of the Indiana Jones movies are great (except the last one about aliens) but how do they relate to Search Engine Optimization (SEO)? 
They don’t, Indiana Jones is a fictional character and your need to rank #1 in Google is real. I get that! But without really knowing who or what you are looking for you and Indiana Jones are just throwing darts in the dark right now. Let’s get the map first and then go find the Holy Grail.
At the beginning of The Last Crusade, Indy’s father goes missing while searching for the Grail. Indy’s only objective is to find his father, but he finds himself in a fight with the Nazis, who were also looking for the Grail. Your initial goal was to grow your business online. Along the way, you somehow found yourself in a battle for Google’s #1 ranking. Indy ends up finding his father and they go after the Holy Grail together to save history. And you too should not lose focus on your primary objective: growing your business.
But how do we do that?
Indy’s path to the Grail was much different than the Nazi’s path. And SEO is different for every business. What works for your cousin’s ex-husband’s business might not work for you. There is no silver bullet. The key to SEO is to define a goal. In other words, decide if you are going to save Indy’s father or find the Grail.
You may achieve both along the way but stay focused on your primary objective.
If your business provides services and you need your website to generate leads, then that is your goal. Ranking #1 in Google is great, but if it doesn’t get you leads, then it is worthless. Create a lead capture mechanism within your website, like a contact form or shopping cart. Then develop a strategy and content to funnel visitors toward that capture mechanism. Use tools like Google Analytics, iSpionage, SEO MOZ, and Majestic SEO Site Explorer to measure your progress in organic traffic, referring site traffic, and direct traffic. Monitor what pages are visited most frequently to see if you can use those pages to drive more traffic to your lead capture. Google Analytics can provide you more information than you will ever need, allowing you to monitor every aspect of your website to gain insight and work towards your goals.
Know your conversion rates like how many people visit your site versus how many inquire about your service or purchase something. Know these things first, before you start trying different SEO strategies. That way you can measure what is working for you and what isn’t, based on your goals. You may find that ranking #1 for “tires” isn’t that helpful or it is unobtainable, but ranking #1 for “tractor tires sales in Laurel, MT” brings you lots of business. Once your goal and measurables are in place, then you may try link building, blogging, or even restructuring all the content on your site, but lets stay focused on the true Holy Grail which is growing your business.
“There is no silver bullet.”
Just think, if Indiana Jones had known exactly how to find his father he wouldn’t have come across the map to the Holy Grail. And if you don’t develop goals and ways to measure your progress, you might spend a lot of time searching for the Holy Grail, not growing your business.
Gregg Alexander is a co-owner of Prime Incorporated in Bozeman, MT. Prime offers branding, graphic design, SEO, social media marketing, and web design/development services to businesses in Montana and throughout the United States.
Visit their website at Prime-Incorporated.com.