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What You Really Mean When You Ask for SEO

You are here: Home / Blog / What You Really Mean When You Ask for SEO

September 3, 2015 by Jessica Scanlon

HDM_NewsGrapAUG15

When small business owners say to us, “We want better SEO,” what they’re really asking for is a magic bullet. In the old days, a black hat SEO company could promise big results by stuffing keywords into your site and creating disreputable backlinks to get your site a better page ranking. Google and other search engines have worked hard to make sure that you can’t trick the internet into thinking you’re a more interesting, a more helpful, or a more popular business than you really are. Turns out, good SEO nowadays means good business practices and good marketing.

Here’s what you REALLY need if you’re looking for better SEO:

  • Branding and a Unique Message
  • A Great Product/Service with Happy Customers
  • Something to Say About What You Do
  • A Social Media Presence
  • A Reason for People to Visit Your Website Frequently and Share It
  • A Great Website (duh!)
  • Technical SEO to Remove Any Back-End Barriers (duh!)

Branding and a Unique Message

What makes your business different than the competition? You must have given this some thought when you started your business. Either there was a clear need for your product/services or you thought you could do it better or make it better. You need to create a professional business persona, capture that message and share it consistently across the internet, marketing materials and in-person. Your brand should inform all of the other marketing decisions in your business.

A Great Product/Service with Happy Customers

If you’ve helped three people or if you’ve helped 100 people, you need to capture their feedback and ask those happy customers to leave great reviews for you. If they really love you, you should be asking for their referrals and generate your own traffic to your site. As you cultivate positive reviews and get more in-person referrals that create traffic to your site, Google will take notice and start ranking it higher. As your real life audience grows, so will your online audience.

Say Something About What You Do

Once you’ve defined what you do and it’s clear your happy customers understand what your story is, tell your story – over and over again. Find new ways to demonstrate your brand and create online content to support it. Stumped?

Here’s an example: Realtors in Austin – there’s a million of them. How do you tell your story and then tell it over and over again? There are a lot of ways to approach it, but it’s best to pick the real story and cultivate it into something. If a client said to me, “I got into real estate because I’m a naturally helpful and social person. I like helping people find a home for their family.” I would immediately pick up on the: Helping Families piece. You’ve identified a story and now everything you create for the website, share online and the general approach for marketing could involve content specific to helping families in your target market.

This part of your SEO plan is usually the most difficult to cultivate. Working with a business coach or a marketing consultant can help you.

A Social Media Presence

Your happy customers need to be supporting you online by following your business. You don’t need to be on every social platform, but you do need to be consistent! Post interesting information that supports your brand. Tell your story through social media and have your happy customers share your story through their social media. All of this activity online will impact your SEO.

Consistency is often the most difficult piece. Outsourcing or hiring help with this can jump-start this part of your digital marketing strategy.

A Reason for People to Visit Your Website Frequently and Share It

Us marketers will run out of spit before we can convince all of our clients to have a blog. I’ll try to put it a different way – you need some reason for people to visit your site more than the one time they look you up. Having reoccurring traffic and generating new content for new visitors to find all contribute to your SEO. In fact, it’s probably the most important piece to your SEO. Once you understand your brand and you have new ways to tell your story, you’ll be able to easily generate new content to support it.

That realtor who loves to help families can regularly blog about family events, businesses and school information. He can put those articles in a newsletter to existing and potential clients. He can share that info to referral sources, and he can link to that content in his social media posts.

All of this done consistently will build your online reputation.

And Duh! A Great Website with Technical SEO

Your website can actually have good SEO if you’ve done all of the above without any technical SEO help, but why would you put all that effort into your online presence without making sure your website’s backend is enhanced to maximize traffic?

Web design can make sure your brand, your story and your content are represented clearly and that it is user friendly. All of that is hugely important to your SEO success. Using a popular CMS platform like WordPress and a mobile-friendly design can ensure you’re set-up for success. But adding technical SEO will make sure all of your efforts pay off.

Daunted? Don’t be. Hot Dog Marketing offers help in all of these areas and we can put a plan together to ensure successful execution of your online marketing strategy. We now offer comprehensive digital marketing packages that take care of everything. Contact us for more info!

Jessica Scanlon

I’m a mom, a small business owner, and I’m a marketing professional with over a decade helping businesses with their branding and online presence. When I’m not spending time with my family or on my business, I love cooking (and eating) and snuggling with my dogs while I binge on TV shows. My favorite authors are Malcolm Gladwell and Steve Martin. My favorite movies are L.A. Story, Little Mermaid, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, and Trainspotting.

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We have worked with Hot Dog Marketing on a couple different projects and are still amazed at how easy they are to work with. They expedite the... process without cheapening the product. They are affordable, efficient, and have provided us with the guidance and insight we needed for our marketing. We are very happy to be working with them!!read more
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Hot Dog Marketing recently completed the launch of my new business's website and I couldn't be happier with how it turned out! They truly listened to... my vision and made it a reality. The design team was so impressive that I chose to also have them design and print my business cards and other print marketing material. My local pet care company, Delighted Paws Pet Care, now has a cohesive and professional (but still fun!) look and brand. Hot Dog was also able and willing to work within my limited budget. They were transparent from the beginning of what they could and could not accomplish within my financial means and executed very much to my satisfaction! Thank you Jessica, Melissa, Brandon, and the entire team at Hot Dog!read more
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13:36 17 Dec 19
Sadly the person that contacted me asked me first what my budget was and if it was between 3,000 to 5,000. When I said no she said I want not their... ideal client.read more
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The entire team at Hot Dog Marketing is very professional and exceptional at customer service. Its refreshing to work with a company that works hard... and clearly wants to do their best each and every time. We highly recommend Hot Dog Marketing if you want to see your company reach its next level of potential! Matt Baker, Realtor/Owner of Baker Realtyread more
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23:25 29 Oct 19
Jessica and her team are AMAZING to work with. I don't know they take the jumbled up notes and conversations and build an entire design and messaging... strategy out of it. They were spot on every time they presented an idea. We will continue to work with them and urge anyone else looking for design, messaging, or marketing to USE THEM!!read more
Lauren Candela
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17:20 14 May 19
Our website re-brand with HDM went smoothly and successfully. They were accommodating with each of our requests, and kept us informed with regard to... completion timelines and project goals. We look forward to working with the HDM team again.read more
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15:01 18 Apr 19
An amazing team of creative professionals to collaborate with! They took the time to really understand and become part of the essence of my vision. I... love my amazing website!read more
Kevin Aderholt
Kevin Aderholt
21:20 06 Feb 19
Hot Dog has served the Austin area small business community well! They provide amazing services to both start-ups and established companies, and I... would recommend them to anyone.read more
Shannon Black
Shannon Black
16:15 25 Jan 19
I am so VERY happy with the content that the team at Hot Dog Marketing creates every week for my preschool business. From what they write and... articles they choose for my ads/posts as well as the pictures of our students they choose to highlight, they are outstanding on every metric that matters. It's night and day compared to the last company I hired. They are charging me less for doing MUCH better work! Our Google ranking, which was near the bottom of the first page, is now landing on the top half. We are showing up on maps when we weren't before. I've been in business for 12 years and other businesses much younger and smaller than ours were getting better results, but no longer! At our second meeting, they even gave me suggestions for the website, which I have since implemented, like starting a blog, to help drive more traffic to it. If I have a question or don't like something (no matter how small), they are incredibly responsive. And as we grow with more locations, they will grow with me, which I can't wait to experience. I am absolutely THRILLED they are handling my account and am incredibly grateful I found them.read more
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14:18 30 Nov 18
We are extremely happy with Hot Dog and what they have been able to do for us! We went from not having any online presence at all to being found on... Google, Facebook and everywhere else we need to be and have seen an increase in call volume within the first few months. We highly recommend Hot Dog for all your digital marketing needs!!!read more
Catherine Allen
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22:56 06 Dec 17
Working with Hot Dog Marketing has been the most stress-free amazing experience ever! Jessica and her staff members, Alexa and Brandon, are very... gracious, easy to work with, and extremely responsive. They all listened to me and what I, as a small one-man business, needed from the very beginning. I love my new slink, professional looking, website.read more
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21:30 09 Aug 17
Hot Dog Marketing was professional and fun to work with from beginning to the end. They really listened to what my vision was and did a great job of... bringing it to life. I would highly recommend them for website, branding or marketing needs. If you want to work with a small business that loves what they do and does an amazing job, then Hot Dog Marketing is for you!read more
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