When it comes to the Internet in 2007, Google is the new Yellow Pages. A top ranking in Google can make a material difference to your business in terms of boosting traffic and sales through your website. With so much new business available from top search engine rankings it is not surprising that almost every Australian business wants their website to be listed number 1 in the search engine results, particularly Google.

 

This means the competition for high rankings is fierce and it is significantly harder to achieve top search engine rankings today than it was five years ago.

If you would like your website to be listed at the search results for popular key phrases you will need to invest in search engine optimization (SEO). This is the buzz term used to describe the process of making website changes to increase your rankings in the search engines.
How should your business approach search engine optimization?

As the competition for high rankings has increased, search engine optimisation has developed into a specialised field with companies either having to dedicate internal resources to optimize their website, or engage a professional search engine optimization firm to boost their rankings.

Unfortunately your website will not rank highly for valuable search terms by simply adding some keywords in your website content and inserting some meta tags. If only it were that simple.

Given most companies cannot afford the luxury of having a dedicated internal resource for search engine optimization the business case for engaging an external firm who specialises in this area is very compelling.

Below is a list of the advantages for outsourcing your search engine optimization:
• A specialised search engine optimization firm is investing in improving their SEO knowledge and networks every day. If you can tap into this knowledge network for a fraction of the cost of doing it yourself, it makes business sense.
• A search engine optimization company is building its SEO knowledge base across a large number of websites, which gives your business the opportunity to access this knowledge to improve the rankings of your websites
• An external SEO firm can amortize their investment in SEO across many clients which produces economies of scale that result in a cost effective solution for your business.
• A professional SEO company has invested in significant infrastructure to streamline the delivery of their search engine optimization services. This saves time and once again reduces the delivery costs, as opposed to trying to perform the service internally.
• Link Building is a key component of search engine optimization - if you or your web designer do not have the time, or have better things to do with your time than find links, outsourcing search engine optimization is the logical step.

To summarise and at the same time recognising our view is somewhat biased, the business case to outsource SEO is very strong, given the high and continued levels of investment being made by search engine optimization companies to deliver top ranking results. Your company has the opportunity to leverage this investment and access this SEO expertise for a fraction of the cost and a larger measure of success than of doing it yourself.