Leveraging SEO to Boost Fort Lauderdale Business

As online commerce continues to develop and evolve, it’s no longer enough for businesses in Fort Lauderdale to just have a website. To stand out in an online marketplace where all your competitors have their own websites, businesses must invest in SEO and website design. Fort Lauderdale businesses can benefit greatly from a SEO strategy that will boost their companies’ ranking on search engine results and ensure that their websites are compatible with the broad array of devices that consumers use to access the Internet.

What is SEO, Anyway?
Search engine optimization tweaks and improves your company’s website to make it more attractive to search engines. The vast majority of consumers now consult the Internet for business decisions, even local choices such as where to go to dinner, what used book store has the best selection, who’s the best mechanic in town, etc. Having a website that is easy for search engines to find and easy for visitors to navigate will make your site – and by extension, your business – more popular.

The truth is that most people browsing the Internet will only look at the first two pages of results. If your website isn’t ranked high enough on search engine results, potential customers won’t even know you exist. Search engine optimization works to get your business a higher ranking on results from Google, Bing, Yahoo, and other search engines.

As the global and local marketplace becomes more competitive for businesses in Fort Lauderdale, SEO work will help differentiate your business from your competitor’s, including the big guys.

How SEO Works
SEO optimization firms have a number of legitimate tactics they can use to improve your business’ ranking on search engine results pages. These include:

• •Create quality, relevant content on your website that readers will want to experience. When people visit your site to read articles, commentaries, and blogs, it will help establish your site as an authority source of information for your industry. Search engine algorithms will recognize and reward that. Judicious use of keywords that Internet users will likely enter into search engines when seeking products and services you offer will also help boost rankings.
• •Give your website’s infrastructure a thorough inspection and clean up things that may be suppressing your search results. Getting rid of dead links and awkward domain names, as well as ensuring your site is compatible with tablets and smartphones will help make your site more attractive to search engines and boost its ranking.
• •Create useful meta descriptions of each page on your site, making it easier for search engine algorithms to access and understand your pages.
• •Get authority sites in your industry link to your site, helping to push traffic your way. Link building isn’t as important as it once was, thanks to Google’s restrictions on the practice, but if done correctly, it can still help drive traffic to your site and lend some credibility. Get involved in social media marketing to promote your website and create viral marketing.
• •Using online videos to promote your website. It’s much easier to get high rankings with video than with other content. The high rankings you get with your videos can translate to higher rankings for your overall site.

These are just a few of the tactics Fort Lauderdale SEO firms can use to help improve your company website. SEO company representatives can describe more strategies and their track record of effectiveness during a consultation.

How to Hire a SEO Firm
Hiring a SEO firm can be a challenge, as there are a multitude of companies out there offering SEO services. Company owners who aren’t tech-savvy may find themselves at a loss for knowing what to look for in an SEO company for Fort Lauderdale SEO work. These are a few main characteristics you should look for when hiring a SEO firm.

• •Commitment to content. Your SEO firm has to be committed to providing useful, relevant content. It’s not enough to just build a website, pack it with keywords, and drop links without consideration. Content created by your SEO firm needs to be of value to readers.
• •Your SEO firm needs to be aware of limitations search engines like Google place on SEO and how to avoid getting blacklisted. Your firm should be able to work within the rules and leverage those rules to your advantage. Avoid companies that give pie-in-the-sky promises about fast link building. Good SEO grows organically over time.
• •Before making a hire, take the time to educate yourself about SEO tactics so you’ll be able to tell the white hats from the black hats. Sooner or later, firms that engage in unscrupulous SEO tactics are going to get burned by Google and the other search engines, and their clients will take a hit in lower search results as well. Stick with reputable firms that do quality work.

It’s also important to ask the same questions you’d ask any contractor you were considering hiring. Inquire about references and talk to current and former customers to see how pleased they were with the provider’s services. Also ask the company about its client retention rate.

Fort Lauderdale is a vital economic hub in Florida and is poised for great growth. Getting your online presence up to speed is just as important as having a clean, attractive brick-and-mortar store, perhaps even more. With the right SEO and website design, Fort Lauderdale businesses can gain a competitive advantage over the local and international companies they rival