If you build it, will they come?

Movies have become the literature of the 21st century.

To me, the greatness of a movie is how quotable it is. If a line from the movie can be worked into every day life, I typically credit the movie a being great.

When I think about great quotable movies, I usually think about the original Star Wars trilogy or The Princess Bride. But I have been working with some clients recently that think more like Ray Kinsella in Field of Dreams.

In the movie Field of Dreams, Kevin Costner’s character Ray Kinsella hears a voice that says “If you build it he will come.”

Don’t Be Like Ray

Many small businesses and non-profits have that same mentality when it comes to their web sites. The quote may have worked in the movie, but in the realm of the internet, it is dead wrong.

What good is a web site if a person can not find it? Sure, you can put your site on social media platforms, business cards, and marketing materials (newspaper ads and the like), but most people are going to Google or another search engine to find things.

To get noticed, you need to have a site that is at the tope of the search engine result pages (SERPs).

But the algorithms that Google uses to rank sites changes 100’s of times a year.

What is a business to do?

You need to make sure that your site has taken care of the basics, when it comes to search engine optimization (SEO).

Make sure your keywords are not in graphics (the search engines can’t read text in an image).

Make sure you have good meta data and title tags.

Make sure you right content (in a blog or in your product or service descriptions).

Other SEO Resources

Another way to keep up on SEO trends is to read blogs such as this one or at sites such as searchenginewatch.com. They provide up to date information and strategies to help your site (and thus your business or non-profit) be relevant.

Martin Russell wrote a great blog article entitled “Top 40 SEO Blogs to Read in 2014”.

Not only does Martin provide the names and links to the blogs, he also provides the Twitter handles as well. Get on Twitter and see even more news and resources. Follow us at @esggraphics.

Remember, if you build it, they may or may not come.

Create the content and do the SEO to make sure you are found.