The reality of search engine optimization is often ignored by business owners. Everybody wants to rank #1 for their keywords, but few are willing to truthfully answer the question, “Does my company deserve to rank #1?”

Is Your Company Deserving of Top Rankings?

The way I see it there are two factors in determining whether or not your company deserves to rank well:

1. Quality of Business
2. Quality of Website

Quality of Business

Before investing thousands of dollars or countless hours optimizing your website and building inbound links, take a minute to evaluate your business. Is your business the best in your industry? Is it the best in the world, the U.S., or your town? What do your customers have to say about your company? How much market share does your business hold?

If you own a broken business, SEO is the last thing you should be thinking about. Honestly evaluate your business. If your business has issues in your product / service or operations, an increase in exposure from SEO will only expose those problems further. Great companies will rank higher because they will have positive PR on their side. Other websites will gladly link to a credible company that offers a great product. Those inbound links are the number one factor in search engine ranking. Take the time to fix any issues with your business before attempting an SEO campaign.

Quality of Website

After passing the “quality of business test” you will need to point the magnifying glass towards your website. This time honestly answer the question, “Does my website deserve to rank #1 in the search engines?” If your website is a basic 10 page website you will have a hard time ranking for anything other than long tail keywords (3 – 4 phrase terms). Long tail keywords will have less competition and less traffic than the more often searched top or head terms. A 10 page website will be unable to target enough keywords to attract meaningful traffic from the search engines.

There are no Short Cuts in SEO

To achieve lasting results you will need to adopt a content creation strategy. Start thinking like a publisher. The new marketing uses quality content to attract visitors to your site. The more content you have the better your chances of being found. Think of it as a dart board. If you have a 10 page website, your potential clients will need to hit the bullseye to find your site. That isn’t very easy to do. On the other hand, if you have a large site because you have committed to a content creation strategy, the bullseye just got a lot bigger. Even if your company’s site never manages to rank for head terms, having a large site will give you enough long tail traffic to make a difference.

The bottom line is real success in SEO requires having a company and website that is deserving of high search engine rankings. Promote your great company with a great website and the search engines will love you.