Newbie web business owners have a lot on their plate — figuring out how to turn a decent profit off of their project is only the beginning. At some point, however, they all face a decision about how to drive traffic to their sites. There are all kinds of gurus telling them all kinds of methods of driving traffic, from clever ways to scam CraigsList to dumping buckets of money into unmanaged pay-per-click campaigns.
Let’s get one thing perfectly clear: none of these stunts holds a candle to the shining light of organic SEO. The reason why is simple: SEO is the most cost-effective method of driving traffic, period. That isn’t to say that there aren’t some downsides — SEO takes some time to kick in — but once it does, you’ll never regret having put that time in.
There’s two parts to doing proper SEO for a web business. You have to make sure that your webpage does everything properly — the on-page SEO — and you have to make sure that other pages link to your webpage in a friendly manner — the off-page SEO. Most on-page SEO is simple enough that a dedicated business owner can learn it and do it themselves, though it’s only really cost-effective if you’re going to be running several websites at once.
Off-page SEO, however, is almost impossible to do cost-effectively within a business. Major corporations often have an in-house SEO department, but many — for example, Travelocity — outsource almost 100% of their SEO, including their content, to outside companies or even teams of freelancers.
If you’re an online business owner and you need traffic that will sustain your business for years to come, you need SEO services. Most times, you’ll be best off forging a long-term relationship with a respectable, affordable SEO company. The work that you do together might take a while to take effect, so have faith. Once it does, you’ll see that what you’ve created together is a pump — a beating heart that drives traffic like bright red blood into the veins of your web business.
