Search engine optimization is the fuel that rockets your website to the top of Google and other search engines. Without this fuel, sites are doomed to remain on the ground. The resulting lack of exposure translates to lower conversion rates, lost leads, and inevitably fewer sales.

Not only will users not be able to find your company through search engines, but they’re also less likely to work with a company without a professional site. Here are some ways web management will improve your search engine rankings and why your wallet will thank you.

The relationship between SEO and sales.

Before we jump into web management and SEO, it’s important to draw a clear connection between rankings and sales. Having a spot at the top of a Google search sounds nice, but is it really that important? Yes, it is! But don’t take our word for it. Let’s see what the research says.

On average, over half of the traffic your site receives will come from organic searches as opposed to other sources such as paid ads. What’s more, those leads directed to your site through SEO are 8x more likely to convert into paying customers. In other words, the more SEO you have, the more $$$ you’ll see. These are results earned through organic means which you won’t have to spend on ads to get.

Winning the virtual popularity contest.

If curating a website feels more like a popularity contest than a business strategy, it’s because that’s exactly what SEO boils down to: building the most attractive and well-ranked site. Taking this analogy a little further, the algorithms set forth by search engines are the judges which determine the quality of your webpages. Your company’s site receives an overall score based on several factors that ultimately determine your ranking in the search results. The most attractive and well-dressed sites are going to end up being more popular.

How a management team will improve your SEO.

Hiring a team to manage your site’s SEO would be like hiring an experienced coach to help you win that frustrating popularity contest. These experts not only know how to build an attractive site for visitors, but they also understand the factors that help it rank high in search engines. Here are some specific things a management team can do to improve SEO on your company’s site:

• Running a blog.

Blogging isn’t just important for holding the interest of repeat visitors, it also plays a major role in determining your site’s ranking. In fact, companies with an active blog see 55% more visitors  than those with an empty site. Google views blogging as a badge of credibility and activity. With web management, you’ll have a team churning out high-quality content on a regular basis to help maximize these benefits.

• Managing reviews.

Customer interaction is another metric search engines use to determine your site’s SEO ranking. When you’re busy dealing with the business side of things, a team managing your site will be working around the clock to organize customer reviews and respond to questions. All of this interaction helps to establish your site as a reputable authority.

• Maintaining links.

Search engines like to see an interplay of links between your company’s site and reputable webpages. This gives your site a sort of “credibility by association”. A web management team knows how to maintain enough links both internally as well as externally to catch Google’s attention.

• Integrating social media accounts.

Social media has a big impact on your site’s ranking. Being active on these platforms is a great way to strengthen link-building and can even convert visitors to your site. Using a team of experts will make it easier to integrate various social media channels into your company’s site to take full advantage of what these accounts have to offer.

• SEO optimization.

There are a bunch of other ‘tweaks’ that a web management team would handle to further boost your site’s ranking. These smaller changes, typically thrown under the umbrella term SEO optimization, include image descriptions, the use of keywords, page summaries (a.k.a meta-descriptions), and much more.

If you’re finding it difficult to transform that napkin doodle into a real business, consider working with HostDoodle (a service of burnett media group) to handle all of your web-based needs. Our team will tackle website hosting, development and design, domain registration, and everything in between so you can focus on building your business in other areas.