Why is SEO important

I received this question during a presentation I was giving on linkbuilding and reciprocal links. The consultants I was working with were trying to figure out how to sell SEO as an important item, to create a need when the client could not recognize the need. This is an industry that (in general) is not very web savvy: healthcare and hospitals.

So, I had to lay it out:

• Everyone uses the web as the main place for research - not yellowbook, not the library, not television or newspapers. I didn’t even list a source, I just mandated that to be true.
• If 80%+ people discover websites through Search Engines, then optimizing for search engines become very important.
• Your online presence is not any different from your…actual presence. It is an experience of your hospital, often the first impression that a future patient has of your hospital - and that is why it is important.
• What people place in their search field in search engines is a question. The sites returned in the Search Engine results pages (SERPs) is an answer. Being on the first page of answers is critical for being found. You can’t play if you don’t play, meaning you can’t be a relevant answer for that searcher if you can’t be found in the first place.
• The difference between old marketing (TV, radio, billboards) versus new marketing (website, email newsletters, SEO, SEM) is that online activities related to their website is absolutely measurable.
• The second difference between old marketing and new marketing is that the web is completely user-driven, meaning a person puts in the search field “Roanoke, VA hospitals” they are specifically looking for relevant results for those search terms. They are prequalified for that search, and if your site fits that criteria then you should care about showing up on those terms. This is magnitudes different than putting up a billboard and hoping that a person driving by will need your medical services.
• If you DON’T do SEO and your competition DOES, then the Search Engines will unapologetically eat your site out of the SERPs and effectively off the web.
  

These are the reasons why websites and SEO is important.

Posted on June 18th, 2008 | By: wangzen | Tags: importance of SEO, SEO
Filed under Thinking about SEO, Uncategorized

2 Responses to “Why is SEO important”

1. sillygirl Says:
   June 20th, 2008 at 11:35 am

   I agree with what you are saying in concept but the reality of it is until my parents and most of the over 40 or 50 age crowd no longer use “old media” there is still probably half the population that will turn to Yellowbook, etc for to meet their needs. My parents do have a computer and they use it for e-mail and getting photos of grandchildren. My dad doesn’t know Google or Yahoo from hole in the wall. Old media is declining but should be used in tandem with new

2. wangzen Says:
   June 20th, 2008 at 6:22 pm

   Thanks for your response, sillygirl.

   Well, since you bring up personal experience as an example I will respond with my own. I am over 40 and am very web savvy. All of my peers, even when not web savvy, know their way around Google. My parents, 65 and 72 both use the computer for all sorts of things. Sure, maybe email for the most part, but they will still get movie times and directions from the web using, yes, search engines.

   And the times that they can’t, they know that they can ask any of their children for information - and many of their answers will come from search engines. So even if older people are not using the internet, their sons and daughters definitely are, and transmit that information to them.

   I understand that the internet will not erase old media: newspapers were not killed off by the advent of radio, and the radio was not killed off by the advent of television, but there has been a shift of advertising dollars towards online campaigns for the reasons I give. With every shift – from newspapers to radio to television to the internet there has been a corresponding shift in marketing dollars because of the advantages I state in the blog –measurability of success, user-driven and prequalified searchers, and not stated – instant publish once worldwide distribution.

   Just look at the success of Google. Online advertising dollars for paid positioning is going through the roof - for a reason.

   My challenge in talking to clients was that they didn’t even see the changes going on around them, and if I couldn’t convince them to play catchup now they might find themselves in a decline against their competitors who do get the web.

   Come back soon, sillygirl.

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