Did you know that approximately 79% of Canadians use the Internet? According to Google, 20% of those Internet users go online to search for local business. Whether it be for restaurants, hair salons, pet sitters, bakeries, retailers…you name it. So if your website is not optimized to be found, then you are potentially losing out on 20% of the traffic.
What exactly is Off-Site SEO? Off-Site Search Engine Optimization is when brick and mortar businesses have their website optimized so that they can be found on the Internet by major search engines. For example: let’s say you’re a small business looking for a reasonably priced SEO Ottawa company to help you out. You would type into Google “SEO Ottawa” for a list of local businesses that do SEO in Ottawa.
Hopefully, if you are one of those local business listings that show up for the above search in Google Maps, you have “claimed” ownership of your business site. Google offers this service for free and it is simple to do. However, only 15% of small businesses have actually claimed their site. Millions of users are looking at these Google Maps listings every day. Don’t you want your business information to be accurate and up-to-date? If you are one of the nearly 2 million businesses that has claimed their Google Maps listing, then you are way ahead of the game.
However, there is so much more to off-site SEO than claiming your Google business listing. Having a blog, Facebook page, Twitter account, are all important components for SEO. But even these social network sites are just a small part of the equation. Your site needs to be keyword rich, have backlinks, header tags, and all the other SEO lingo that goes with optimizing your site.
But you don’t have to be well-versed in any of this to make it work. That’s what SEO companies are for. It’s unlikely you would fix your own plumbing in your office should it spring a leak, you don’t want to be fixing your own website when you don’t have the knowledge.
With off-Site SEO becoming increasingly popular, more businesses are realizing that they need to step up their game when it comes to their website. Advertising in the Yellow Pages is becoming a thing of the past. It’s expensive, and you never really know how many times people have looked at your ad. With off-site SEO you get those statistics up front. And because the information is interactive, you can use video to be found, as well as be optimized for mobile phone users. Once small business owners realize the power of the Internet as opposed to advertising in the phonebook, the opportunities are endless.
Most small business owners are struggling with just keeping their business alive and running. Having to work on their website and learning exactly what needs to be done to get better rankings in search engines is something they want to do. However, they’re not quite sure how to go about doing it.
That’s where doing a search for “SEO Ottawa” on Google will help you. And off-site SEO doesn’t have to be outrageously expensive to be good. There are many reasonably priced companies that are willing to help you out. Keep in mind that if your SEO campaign is done right, the cost of it will be minimal to what you reap in terms of new business in the end.





