How do you improve your Search Engine Optimization?

This year, the Wichita community has had the opportunity to benefit from the Business Booster Series, hosted at Wichita State University’s Center for Entrepreneurship and Meritrust Credit Union. The workshops range in topics from using data, to social media, to culture and are designed to help businesses in the area grow.

            On October 10th, Marc Zwygart from Copp Media Services presented an Introduction to SEO. He began by saying that 99% of businesses weren’t worried about their SEO (search engine optimization) which meant that those who are focusing on their search engine content had a huge competitive edge over the others. While he stated that SEO was a complicated topic, those attending the workshop were able to gain insight into this important subject.

            Since keywords are the most important part of SEO, allowing search engines to match searches with words that are on your website, Mr. Zwygart stressed that it was important to have content on your website. This means that you need to have text that describes what you do, using words that potential customers are likely to search. As well as putting keywords in your content, it is also important to include keywords in your links. Mr. Zwygart urged businesses to make sure they used a consistent address and phone number whenever posting it online, as search engines weren’t able to distinguish between even the smallest differences and would categorize them as different businesses. Finally, he instructed the audience members to address negative reviews. Doing this, he says, will turn 30% of the negative reviewers into raving fans, simply because of taking the time to listen and to reply to them.

            While SEO isn’t a well known topic with small businesses in the Wichita area, thanks to the Business Booster Series, business owners and their employees were able to more fully understand this important concept and develop strategies to improve their SEO.

- Carmen Resco