I’m Alex Bungener and I’m the founder of Digital+, Customers at the Speed of Light. We optimize businesses to attract and capture new customers. One of the ways to do that is through search engine optimization. The question is, is it right for your business? And honestly, the answer is, it kind of depends.
Most Online Searches Are for Local Business
So let’s go into why I say, it depends. Are you a local business? If you are, then SEO is actually very important for your business because a large majority of online searches are for a local supplier of whatever service or product that the person is looking for. If you’re a retail store, a dentist, a chiropractor, or any service type of business, the local SEO is very important. It will be very effective for you. We have a number of our customers that are getting 30 percent of their business now from people that find them online.
National and International SEO Depends on What You Are Selling
What if you are a business that sells nationally or internationally? That’s trickier. The reason I say that is because if you’re selling $5 widgets, SEO may not be very cost-effective because how you do a local search engine optimization is different from national or international SEO. With local business SEO, we make your business relevant for the services or the products you sell and we make you relevant and legitimate in the area that the business is located in.
With national or international, what you have to do is literally target specific keyword phrases. You have to create back links for specific keyword phrases. A back link is when there is a link from another website to your website, and what you want to do is make sure that the website your back link is on is a highly relevant high-quality website. These are things that you need to do manually, and not just by posting out into the ether.
Back Links Are Expensive
Back links require manual programming, and it’s not an inexpensive proposition. That’s why I say if you’re selling $5 widgets it could be a rather expensive way to do so. That’s why I think that doing Facebook advertising and social media for $5 widgets may be a more effective use of your marketing dollars. But if you’re selling something that’s a few hundred or few thousand dollars, then the SEO for national and international is definitely worth the investment because you can get a much higher return on your investment, or ROI, through that.
So in a nutshell, because of the way local SEO works, it’s cheapest and most efficient to use if you’re a local rather than a national or international business. That’s why a lot of our customers can see well over 300, 400, and 500 percent return on their investment with local SEO. National and international businesses should look at the average cost for an order before determining whether or not its worth the investment. Do that research and find out before you go and invest in search engine optimization. That way you get the best bang for your buck.
About Alex Bungener
Alex Bungener, born and raised in Charlotte NC, is a graduate of Wake Forest University. With a BA in Biology his business experience is through the School of Hard Knocks.
Alex and his wife of 26+ years partnered up 25 yrs ago to start a pet sitting service. Several years later Alex started a pre-employment company and sold it 3 years later. Then he and his wife, 2 dogs, and a cat moved from NC to Cape Cod, a dream of there’s, where Alex had just purchased a franchise.
Then in 2011, with Local internet search results starting to happen, Alex founded Digital+, LLC to help small businesses all across the country grow. “I truly believe the only way America becomes economically strong is when the mom and pop businesses are kicking butt! And that’s what our services do for small businesses!”.
Alex’s hobbies and interests are woodworking, poker, cigars, craft beers, helping business owners, fishing, golf (very badly), bourbons, scotches and networking..