Search Engine Optimization

               I use google every day, multiple times a day. Lately I have been working on my car a lot so a lot of my searches have been geared towards car parts and repairs. Have you ever stopped to wonder why when you search say, car parts Auto Zone is higher up on the page then NAPA? Well it is not because AutoZone comes first alphabetically it is because AutoZone is doing a better job with their SEO. Search engine optimization is not a new thing. In an article written in 2010 for Business Insider they break SEO down to its most basic definition, getting more traffic to your webpage thru a search engine. Doesn’t seem very complicated when it is broken down like that and is it really that important?

              According to Business Insider every business that has a website should have SEO as a part of their growth strategy and now in 2017 I think this advice given 7 years ago is probably even more relevant. It is not a coincidence that AutoZone, O’Reily and NAPA are the top three results when I search car parts and it is also not a coincidence that by page three of my google search it is listing companies I have never heard of. There is a very real possibility that these lesser known companies could become more successful if they were higher up in rank in a search engine. For me personally, I open the first couple compare parts and prices and buy from whomever gives me the best quality of the best deal and if that is some no name parts company then the only reason they would get my business is by being higher in my google search.

              SEO can get pretty complicated and there are many business that have a position dedicated completely to it. A person or a whole team of people whose main goal is get their website the number one spot on a search engine in a number of different searches. You can even hire a firm to come in and improve the SEO of your company. For small business it is hard to get into that top spot for generalized searches like “car parts” but a small business can work on targeting a spot for a search for “car parts, logan ut.” Forbes  published a great article on SEO for small local businesses and they make starting the process seem less intimidating. They suggest making accurate places pages on all the major search engines. They also suggest uploading lots of quality content to your webpage as well as simply making sure you have accurate addresses, hours of operation and other information on your page and on searches. One that I found interesting is the suggestion to get good google reviews to bump up your SEO.

              While SEO can seem really complicating it is nice to know that there are little things that you can do as a small business to raise your rank a little.