Marketing In A Recession

Gina Gray has been specializing in search engine optimization for locally and nationally based businesses for 5 years with her company, Marketing 4 U Now. Her skills have helped her clients be found on page one of search engines for their keywords. She is the mother of two, Lauren, age 6, and Thomas, age 3. She resides in Galloway with her family.

I know, only SOME people are saying we’re in a recession, but for heavens sake, what does it take to just admit it?

Many businesses are trying desperately to figure out how the current recession will be impacting their company. Some businesses are taking a pre-emp­tive route and reviewing their expenses, seeing where they can cut down on spending; unfor­tunately many businesses are choosing their marketing budget to be cut.

If your business has been con­sidering cutting marketing and advertising dollars, or already has, I strongly urge you to con­sider putting the money still allotted towards search engine optimization (SEO) of your web­site. SEO is a very inexpensive form of advertising, yet highly effective for getting targeted traf­fic to your website; and through your website your customers will receive information on your products and services.

Let me give you 3 ways that SEO can help with marketing in a recession.

1) Today many consumers are looking for bargains and “the best buy”. So, words like “discounted”, “cheaper”, “low prices”, “sale”, attract more customers. Do you have any pages on your website marketing these phrases? The beauty of Internet marketing (and websites) is that you can make changes like this by adding and/or modifying pages on your website and make them available almost immediately. And, you can display these messages in the description for the link to your website in the search engines, making people choose your site over others.

2) SEO can help your business find additional keywords to products or services you are offering that potential customers are search­ing for. How? A big aspect of SEO is searching for Internet trends, and finding how many people a month are looking for what you want to be found for. In other words, what words are being used on Internet searches? Let’s say your business provides local boat cruises for a variety of services. However, in the past 12 months it is revealed that there is a considerable increase for people searching for wedding services on a boat. Your website can utilize that information, making your site more readily visible for the higher searched term.

Basically, find out what your audience is looking for and then give it to them.

3) When your website is optimized, part of the ongoing maintenance from the SEO firm is analyzing the statistics from the website. This means finding what key­words the majority of the visitors coming to your site are using, how long visitors are staying on the site, which pages are being viewed the most and longest, and much more. With all this infor­mation the necessary changes can be made to your website, this allows ever continuing improve­ment to your site and searcha­blity.

Many website owners make the great mistake or believing that once they have a website and have it optimized they are done; even more tragically some business owners think they only need a website and don’t even know about SEO! I can­not begin to tell you how big of a misconception that is. The trick to a successful website is keeping it constantly updated. Websites are not brochures, so they should not be treated as such. Constant improvements will keep your website up to date and more search engine friendly (aka Google will want to rank you higher).

If you are already receiving SEO services for your web pres­ence, contact your SEO provider to see if they are providing you with the needed services. If you are not optimized with SEO I highly suggest getting started already! Contact us for afford­able SEO services. We’ll be happy to answer your questions, and tell you our plans for utiliz­ing your website for optimum profits. Now is the time to get ready!