SEO and the Art of Abundance

At Michigan SEO Group, we try to run our business based on principles. In fact, every week at our staff meeting we ask each of our team members to name a principle that we’ve talked about and how they’ve put it into play over the previous week. Two of the principles that we frequently talk about are “abundance” and “helping people out.”

To some, abundance means having more than you need, but to us it means giving more than is required. Principles are fine and dandy, but the real test is how they show up in the real world. One of the ways we try to be abundant is in the information we provide to our audience.  There’s a lot of great information on SEO and online marketing available on our web sites (www.michiganseogroup.com and www.seoannarbor.com).  When people contact us with questions, we try to provide them with a lot of good information, often free of charge.

There are a lot of different ways to help people out.  Sometimes a kind word or a smile is all you need to brighten someone’s day.  But typically the way that we help people is by advising them with some aspect of their website, social media, search engine results, or other forms of online marketing.  That’s our mission, and when we can combine the practice of being abundant with helping people out, that’s when we feel our best.

So how does this show up in the real world?  Here’s an example:

Someone contacted us through our website and had a question about why certain parts of their website weren’t being indexed in Google.  We responded with a few initial suggestions and later received a follow up email with some more information that helped narrow the problem down, along with a note that she would be happy to pay for some help.

The problem seemed technical in nature, so we had one of our SEO wizards take a deeper look to see if this was something we could help her with.  While looking into it, we found that her Wordpress based website was using a certain plug-in that was notorious for causing the problem she was experiencing.  We responded with the information we found, along with a few suggestions and told her to let us know if she needed any further assistance.

It turns out our suggestion worked, and she was able to resolve her problem with the information that we provided.  We didn’t charge her anything, but it made us feel good that we were able to help, and I’m confident that it made her feel good about us and what we do.  Maybe we’ll get some future business or a referral, but the important thing to us is we were able to help.

And while we are on the subject of principles, one more principle that we talk a lot about is that if you don’t A-S-K, you don’t G-E-T.  You can apply this principle to a wide range of things, but typically we talk about it in conjunction with online reviews.

Online reviews are a great way to get the word out about your business and the great work that you do, and a lot of good reviews can help boost your search engine rankings.  But for some reason, a lot of businesses don’t actively seek out online reviews.  Sure, if you do good work, someone will eventually leave you a review, but sometimes people just need to be reminded.  Don’t be shy – ask them to leave you a review.  You won’t believe what a difference it will make.

We went back to the lady who we helped for free and said “we were delighted we were able to help you out.  If you like what we did, please leave us an online review, as that would really help us out.”  We received an enthusiastic response and a great review was posted later that day.

Abundance is a wonderful thing!

Want to learn more about how to offer your customers the best experience possible? Our team is ready to answer any questions you might have. Contact us today to get started and find out how you can step up your game with regards to your online marketing!