SEO: What Is It? And Why Do I Care?
November 15th, 2011
A Beginner’s Guide to Search Engine Optimization
Most of you have probably heard the terms “search engine optimization” or “SEO” but don’t really know what it means or how it impacts your funeral firm.
But lucky for you…we do! Without overwhelming you with too much information, we’ve outlined the basic what’s, why’s and how’s for a beginners guide to search engine optimization.
What is SEO?
According to Wikipedia, search engine optimization, aka SEO, is the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in search engines via the un-paid, aka organic, search results.
So basically…in simple terms, SEO is how your website gets found among the sea of competing websites and web pages in the World Wide Web.
Why should I care about SEO?
To understand this, I think you first need to see a couple of statistics to understand that your client families are online and how they are using search engines.
Today, there are approximately 2 billion Internet users worldwide. If you don’t think your client families are online, you need to think again.
And what do you think they’re doing online? With more than 11 billion searches performed on Google each month, you can bet your families are looking for products, services and information. They’re no longer using the Yellow Pages…20% of Google’s monthly searches are for local businesses.
But how does that relate to your funeral firm?
The phrase “funeral home” is searched more than 5 million times per month on Google alone. And seeing as 75% of Internet users never scroll past the first page of search results…SEO is a MUST if you want to attract more families and drive traffic to your website, as opposed to the competition.
How to get started with SEO?
If your funeral firm is in the position to hire a consultant to help with your SEO…go for it! But if not, here are a few tips to get you started and help boost your search engine rankings.
• Research relevant keywords: Keywords are the words and/or phrases your families type in when searching for products, services or information on search engines. Google AdWords is probably the most commonly used tool to search for relevant keywords and it’s FREE!
• Determine the most effective keywords: You want to avoid using the most generic terms that have the highest competition. To increase your ranking, you really want to focus on using more specific keywords or phrases instead of industry jargon. As long as they are still relevant to your funeral firm, they’ll provide you more SEO value.
• Implement your keywords: Now that you’ve determined your list of keywords, you want to put them to use on your website. Make sure keywords or phrases are used throughout all the content of your website as well as in your title tags, meta description tags, page titles, links, and in your domain name, if possible.
*Please note: Depending on how familiar, or unfamiliar, you are with these terms and how your site was built, you may need your developer’s help implementing your keywords.
As always, we love to hear from you so if you have further questions or comments, feel free to leave them in the comment area below.
[…] my last post, SEO: What Is It? And Why Do I Care? I briefly talked about how your families are using the Internet to search for products, services […]
intill now i had never understood the process of getting my page up front. thanx.
You’re welcome! I hope it helps!
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[…] Today, 97% of consumers use the Internet when researching products and services in their local area. When a death occurs, it’s likely the person planning the funeral service is going to start with Google. If they type the phrase “funeral home” with your city and state, and your funeral home doesn’t appear on the first page of the search results, chances are they will click on a competitor’s website first. Make sure your website is optimized to appear ahead of your competitors in search engine results. To learn more about SEO, check out our Beginner’s Guide to Search Engine Optimization! […]
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[…] Learn more: SEO: What Is It? And Why Do I Care? […]