Have you invested time into search engine optimization (SEO)? One of the most important aspects of traffic generation on the web is how you optimize your pages for the search engines. Whether it’s learning it yourself or paying a pro, search engine optimization is very important to your traffic stats and can be even more important if you choose to monetize your site. I’m not saying that search engines own the web and that they should be your sole source of traffic, in fact I’ve been avoiding optimization other than for the term “business blogger” up to this point and focusing on content.

When I say that SEO is important I’m not going to provide you with the names of people that I think are great SEO’s; that’s not the point of this post. The SEO business is highly competitive and there are plenty of great firms out there to choose from. Should you choose to go that route, my suggestion would be to do a search on “SEO” or “search engine optimization” and see what resources show up close to the top of the serps, then use them to your advantage.

SEO can enable your online business to flourish. The majority of web users open up their browsers and go directory to their favorite search engine to find what they’re looking for. I realize that I’m not the average web surfer, but I have watched my “web ignorant” friends search the web and it’s a totally different experience. This is why SEO and business are important friends, especially if you monetize. Search engines matter to the average user. Not to mention most of them have no clue that they just clicked on a Google ad let alone have a clue how websites earn their money. I don’t expect them to know this, that’s my job.

There are other problems that can be brought on by the lack of knowledge you or your business have about SEO. If you don’t know SEO and your business is trying to brand itself with a certain phrase then you’re probably not going to have a strong brand. In fact I do own the #1 spot on Google as of right now for the term “business blogger.” Now if you’ve been marketing yourself as the “business blogger” for years and you don’t show up for that term near the top or at the top of the search results then you might have a branding/marketing/web development/traffic/SEO/business problem. If you take pride in your business then SEO should be an investment that you make.