Everybody I speak with is always so worried about where their website ranks in the search engines. To many times I speak with someone and they feel like their business is just going to sky rocket when they get onto that first page for a certain keyword they want to rank for. Yes rankings are important but they are not the reason why websites are successful. It is important for businesses and website owners to really understand that having a website rank does not equate to a successful business. Building a business online through a variety of proactive marketing efforts including search engine optimization is how you get your online business really growing.

Building an online business is simply that, a business. Finding loopholes in the search algorithm and pouncing on them does not help a website grow and prosper. All the major search engines are slowly closing those loop holes and leaving the flood gates wide open for websites and business owners that are looking to proactively brand themselves online the right way. I receive many calls from people asking me why their site does not get more conversions when it ranks on page one of a search result for their chosen keyword. They claim the website ranks well but nothing happens. Websites do not grow from rankings alone. This is where SEO has encountered a fundamental flaw in its life cycle. Too many people focus all their attention on rankings and not the actual process of building a business. Many out there practicing SEO have this theory that marketing a business is a direct reflection from search engine rankings. It is important to understand that the buying habits and patterns of all audiences across every vertical market are changing. The recent economic climate has caused many industries to change their buying behaviors. It has caused potential buyers to look at things in a new light before making any type of purchase or inquiry.

Online businesses are no different than any other type of business in the sense that buyers more so than ever require reassurance before they purchase anything and this happens with proactive branding. If a website owner approaches their website with marketing in mind the rankings will follow naturally over time. Assuming a website is already optimized the link building should be approached with marketing as the number one priority. Putting marketing as the main ingredient in any link building campaign allows a business to really build their brand and generate the right type of visitors. Website visitors are slowly starting to realize that even organic rankings don’t really mean that your business is the right business to do work with. Potential clients want to see your brand on sites like Facebook and Twitter being active in the community building trust for yourself or your brand. Trust is very important for potential customers and can only be obtained through proactive online SEO marketing.