It's that time of the year again, a time to take a moment, look back at the past year with fondness and welcome the new one with an open mind and renewed zeal. There is nothing quite like starting the New Year with a couple of resolutions to get you ahead this 2008. Here are some for you to think about, but remember, much like a personal resolution, yours depend on what you think your business is capable of doing, as well as what needs "improvement" in the first place.
- Get really serious about optimizing your website. "Train" yourself on the basics - maybe starting with the Best of Whoast's Blogs or hire someone to get me up to par. Small Business Computing has an article on "How to Hire a Good SEO Expert"
- Content, Content, Content -- Improve your site's content quality - cut the "fat" out and make certain that your content truly represents your business and your core capabilities while reflecting how your company addresses your customer's needs. DirectNews' article on "Substantial" content needed for SEO gives a good suggestion:
He suggested websites consider options such as encouraging user-generated content or hiring writers ... Dedicated writers producing copy for a website can be "tedious and manual" but works well for SEO, Mr Enge continued.
"Sites rich in content draw a wealth of inbound links. Great content will draw the links with little or no additional effort on your part to seek them out," he added.
- Tie your SEO efforts to your marketing plan. This should be the year that your marketing campaign intrinsically include search engine marketing not as an afterthought, but as a main component. From the beginning of your marketing plan, include SEO or SEM strategy and save time backtracking in the implementation stage.
- Begin social networking your way into your customer's lives. Leveraging Social Networking Sites to Generate Business by Michael Jones talks about social networking and how it helps businesses get results.
WebProNews has more resolutions of their own that you should check out in An SEO Checklist for the New Year.
Happy New Year!
