If any of the following is true about your business, you probably don’t need SEO services for your website.

You don’t need SEO services if …

The population in your target market would not use a search engine to find your business
Believe it or not, there are still many areas throughout the country that do not rely upon the Internet, much less search engines, for all types of information.  As a business owner, you have to know, understand and be keenly in tune with your target market.  Also, each region has its own unique culture and way of doing business, which may not include looking for businesses on the Internet.

You can write great content full of keywords and phrases that searchers are looking for
No one knows your business better than you do.  Marketing companies can spend many hours researching your industry and market, providing you with some great insight, but no one will have the level of passion, knowledge or experience in your business than you do.  It will shine through in the manner in which you write about your business.  So if you have the ability to write well, use it to your advantage and start filling up your website’s pages with some really great content!

Your site already follows the few important best practices that anyone can follow
Yep, there are really only a few important components of a well structured website, as it relates to SEO.  What’s more, most popular content management systems available today already implement these practices on their own.  Which means, once you’ve implemented a good CMS, you can focus on the more important aspects of driving traffic to your site, like writing good content.  Of course you don’t HAVE to use a CMS, but then you (or your Web Developer) will be stuck with difficult task of optimizing your site manually.

Your current marketing strategy is effectively bringing business through the door without the help of your website
SEO is just a subset of marketing.  Just as in marketing, if your target market is not thriving, your SEO strategy will fall flat on the ground.  SEO can only assist your existing marketing efforts when your target market is in good shape.

These are just a few of the many reasons why your business may not need or benefit from SEO services.

As stated in the last point, SEO is just a subset of marketing.  Your business should have a solid ongoing marketing strategy, which may or may not involve SEO.

To do that, your business’ message must find a way to stand out to the general public, no easy task today considering the prodigious proliferation of websites, all with messages clamoring to be seen and heard.

The following list, which is by no means exhaustive, includes some basics for getting your business seen and heard above the noise of the web’s vox populi:

1. Keep your web site fresh with new text and images
2. Use a blog to talk about the issues addressed by your business and the solutions it offers
3. Where possible post updated press releases or news bulletins to showcase your products and/or services
4. Post customer testimonials as often as possible
5. Give your site a chance to be seen by deploying best practices for Search Engine Optimization
6. Use Social Media networking to get more eyeballs on your business and your site
7. Make sure you have selected the right keywords that apply to your business and include them for your site
8. Keep abreast of what your competitors are doing online, so you can counter with strengths that you know are differentiators for your business
9. Make a commitment to maintaining your online marketing strategy through innovation, keeping up with the latest software, techniques, and best practices for online marketing
10. Frequently review results of grading your website with available evaluation tools

Again, these are but a few best practices for achieving a successful online marketing strategy and getting your message in front of the masses.  But if you commit to and perform these ten, you will have positioned yourself for success.  The rest is up to you and as always how well you perform for your customers.

The Internet is plastered with new terminology, newly coined business names, and new products and services, many relating to the Internet itself.  But with so many messages clamoring for our attention, it’s easy to become influenced by flashy ads or cleverly concocted phrases some of which we may wish to adopt a version of as our own.  With this as well we may forget the importance of adhering to only the highest ethical standards for our own conduct online.

Aware of it or not, truth telling or stretching in advertising will make or break a business sooner or later, especially now with an ability to attract and affect so many people through our websites, emails, social media marketing and the like.  Today, because of the impact we can have using the tools of the web, practices and behaviors in accord with only the highest ethical standards are more critical than ever to the success and longevity of a business.  In a very real sense we do eventually “reap what we sow.”

Hence, we need to withstand the temptation to exaggerate claims for our products or services in the interests of merely attracting more potential customers, a practice that in the longer term will most likely accrue to the detriment of our business as the truth of our claims is revealed.

It can be helpful to recognize the various disguises worn by certain less than ethical practices.  Sometimes it’s a rationalized decision where the end justifies the means, perhaps involving a little truth stretching or a convenient omission of certain details, or seemingly small and harmless exaggerations.  Either way as these practices are exposed sooner or later the effect on business will almost always be negative or even catastrophic.

As business owners and as merely members of the human race, each of us has the responsibility to temper enthusiasm with reality, exhibit honesty in our representations and uphold and protect the integrity of business conducted on the Internet.  A business built upon the highest ethical standards will be seen by the masses as a beacon unto itself, if only for the reputation it has earned and enjoys.  And quite frankly, there’s no way to buy that kind of advertising.