For most industries, there are hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions, riding on the top keyword positions. If all anyone had to do was pay Google or someone once to get them to the top of the search engines, there would be a lot of newly minted millionaires. Many small business website owners want to believe, just like those that buy the late-night “get rich off real-estate with no money down” infomercials. Do you honestly believe that you can make money on real estate with no money down by buying a $1,000 instructional DVD off television? Than why would you believe that you could get rich off just paying someone once to make some changes to your website? Or $200 software that will “automatically optimize your website,” or a firm that says, “Guaranteed Top Positions!!!” (By the way, if you do see that phrase from companies, ask if it exists in their sales contract and with what disclaimers)

So you’re thinking, “well, someone has to get in the top.” If you ask most top ranked website owners in search engines, they will undoubtedly tell you that it required at least 1 to 3+ years (at the very least) of investments, copywriting, and buying or building backlinks (links from other websites that point to your website). They will tell you the process took a long period of time of constant changes. Proving that once again, there are no get-rich-quick schemes (legal ones anyway) – in retail or on the web.
So what are the keys to successful SEO?

• Understanding which keywords to initiate your long term SEO strategy (because long-term is the only real strategy that works). This is best done by running a pay-per-click campaign and having experts analyze your keywords to see which terms are best for your particular product, service, and region.

• An SEO expert may take 6 months to get you ranked for “wholesale plumbing supplies Northern California,” which may bring you 4 customers a year, while “wholesale plumbing” brings you 4 customers a week.

• Running a pay-per-click campaign. Let your competitors waste their money on get-rich-quick schemes. You can save your money and grow your business off pay-per-click advertising while initiating a long-term SEO strategy based on the data that your pay-per-click campaign is telling you.

• Leveraging advanced marketing and sales software tools. I know, you’re thinking, “I don’t have time to learn software and I don’t want to deal with that.” Well, odds are, your top revenue producing competitors in your space are leveraging powerful marketing software. If you’re in an auto race, would you rather be competing with a Porsche or an old clunker? Which car can we predict will likely win?

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