Search engine optimization conjures up all sorts of bad associations. Everything from the link spammers who troll the comments section of popular blogs and websites, to the articles so packed full of keywords that you can’t really tell what they’re trying to say. However, there is another side to search engine optimization; understanding and implementing that side of SEO is absolutely essential to the success of your website.
The key to SEO is creating good content, and knowing how to get your content seen by more people. To that end, we’ll look at links, and how to build powerful inbound links, as well as some of the keys to creating great content, and which types of content to avoid.
Links
Links are another extremely important aspect of SEO. There are two types of links, outbound and inbound. Outbound links are links from your site to another site. They do not really affect your search engine ranking. Inbound links are links to your site from another. They affect your site massively.
It can be relatively easy to modify your own site for SEO purposes. However, it is much more difficult to influence other bloggers and websites within your industry to link to your site. That is why search engines rate them so highly.
However, there are two extremely effective ways that you can build an impressive collection of inbound links – commenting and guest blogging.
Commenting really just means engaging with the blogging community in your particular industry. Start by reading and commenting on the blogs of other blogs in your industry. Do not spam links to your blog, but leave an occasional backlink. Search engines prefer inbound links built over a long period of time.
Guest blogging, on the other hand, requires a bit more expertise. Find a popular blogger who write about a similar subject to you, and offer to write a guest post for him or her. Popular bloggers are frequently very busy, and will likely take you up on your offer. If you write a guest post, it is acceptable to promote your own site with a link at the end.
Content
With all the focus on links, never forget that good content is the ultimate purpose of your website. The purpose of your site should be to provide content, and your users visit your site to access your content. You can add any number of frills on top of this, but the basic does not change.
So how do you optimize content for search engine crawlers? Simple. Just write for your users. If your users like your content, then will visit your site more often, link to it more often, and generally spread the word about your content. There is no more organic way to drive up your rankings than by having other people naturally promote your site.
What’s more important to keep in mind with content is what can de-optimize your site. The biggest threats to your site are duplicate content and filler content. Like in any business, you should always be looking for your site’s value-add. Look at it from your user’s perspective. If you’re just offering duplicate content, what value does your site add for them?
So make sure that you’re providing new, fresh, original content. It takes more work than linking to other sites, but the search engine crawlers will reward your site for it, and more importantly, your users will keep coming back for more.
The key to all Internet sales is search engine optimization. Think of the Internet as a giant city, with no street signs, no telephone directories and only one way to navigate from point A to point B. Search engines are the online navigation method. People do not keep a list of websites they are interested in visiting. Instead, when they need a specific item or information on a topic they visit a search engine and use search terms to find what they are looking for. Your business needs to be optimized to work with search engines, so it will show up on search engine results pages (SERP). Below are some tips to keeping your site at the top of targeted SERPs.
The more effort you put into your search engine optimization strategies the more quickly you will see results. Because search engines are the primary way people navigate the Internet, your rankings on SERPs are crucial for long term business success online. Use the best “white hat” optimization strategies to promote organic search optimization. Do not simply create pages that are nothing but keywords. It may temporarily increase your hits, but in the long term it will simply result in your page being blacklisted and forgotten. Plus, a page that gets hits using those strategies will not successfully convert hits into sales. The only way to consistently enjoy increasing sales numbers is to provide valuable services and top notch content. You can be successful at online selling if you put in the necessary time and effort.
Search engine optimization is a constantly changing process. Trends and statistics change virtually overnight, making it difficult to maintain rankings using artificial strategies. The Google Algorithm, which is used to determine search engine results rankings for pages, changes regularly. Many people have attempted to pin down the exact items that comprise it, but no one has been entirely successful. While certain aspects have been well documented in the past, the complete picture has never been clear. However, there are things to watch out for in the coming year. Strategies that were once highly effective, now barely touch rankings, and things that may have no obvious connection can now have a big impact for the upcoming year.
Historically, one great method for improving your placement in a search engine results page (SERP) was to use an exact keyword match phrase as your domain. Exact keyword match phrase domains are purchased domain names that exactly match a phrase that is one a company would like to be ranked for. An example of this practice would be a company that is seeking to advance for the phrase “best accommodations Chile” would then purchase the domain with those keywords in it. This practice has helped many websites improved their position on SERPs, but it is no longer showing the same strong results. This SEO method is not effective any more. What this means for businesses that employ this tactic, is two pronged. One, they can stop buying additional domain names that are not directly related to their overall business, resulting a small monetary savings. Two, businesses must focus on other SEO methods to maintain their rankings. For those that have never used this practice, enjoy the suddenly level playing field.
We’ve discussed what won’t work, so let’s take a look at things that will work to improve your SERP positioning. Today, it is all about social media. SERP position will be directly affected by the number of times your page is shared, liked or tweeted. However, it looks like currently Facebook results are more highly respected than other social media sites. This means that your position on SERPs will be more affected by likes on Facebook than by tweets using Twitter. This could change at any time, so it is not a good idea to focus all your efforts on Facebook to the exclusion of other social media opportunities like LinkedIn, MySpace, YouTube and more. Building a presence on social media sites takes time and dedication, but with the added importance given new SEO techniques, it is more than worth the effort. These sites represent a direct marketing opportunity as well. Not only will your business be working to improve its SERP using social media, it will also be building customer relationships.
Businesses that do not adjust to changes in the online market place, fail quickly. The Internet is fast paced and constantly changing. Things that are incredibly popular on Monday are old news by Wednesday. Never focus all SEO efforts on one method. Broad application of a number of tactics is the key to success with organic SEO.
More and more businesses are turning to YouTube to advertise their business online. Search engine optimization is the basis for online marketing, but once your website is ranked high enough on search engine where do you go from there? Social networking is the next destination for those looking for alternate marketing avenues on line. Video results are rising in popularity and studies have shown that internet browsers are more likely to watch a video than read an advertisement. Below are five good reasons to incorporate online videos in your marketing strategy.
1. Get More Hits on Your Website
When you perform a search online, it is common to get a video result on the first page. When you produce videos and incorporate them on your website with appropriate keywords, you can improve your search rankings even more. People are much more likely to open a video link versus a text link.
2. People Stay on Sites Longer When Engaged by a Video
Reading walls of text, no matter how attractively laid out, is not as interesting as content that includes pictures and videos. The more interesting your content, the longer people will stay on your website. The longer they stay the more likely they are to make a purchase. Ergo, videos can increase your sales.
3. Videos Generate Trust
How to videos that are carefully filmed create the idea that your company is expert in their field. These videos add value to your site and increase link back opportunities. When consumers perceive your company as expert, they are more likely to trust you to provide the services they need.
4. Customers See a Face to Go with the Product
All sales are generated by selling the people rather than the product or service. When people like the sales people they are more likely to make a purchase. Online, you can’t sell directly, so using video to let people get to know your company is a great idea. People want to get to know the companies they use, by using video you give them that opportunity. Relationship building is incredibly important for sales. Customers that feel connected to a business are more likely to show loyalty and make continued sales.
5. Give Customers Better Information
A video can be used to provide customers with additional information about products. Sometimes a demonstration is exactly what is needed to propel a person into making a purchase. Actually seeing the product in use can be the motivation that a browser needs to become a shopper.
Acknowledging the necessity of video is easy, actually producing the videos can be more difficult. The promotion of the videos is practically free using the internet, but producing them will have some costs. If your company doesn’t have the necessary equipment you will need to either purchase it or rent it. Sometimes, a production company will need to be involved to create videos that are user friendly. Your text web content needs to be high quality, and so does your video content.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is an essential part of any online marketing. Effective SEO can dramatically improve your online business, but poor use can turn it down to a trickle. A well designed website that is visually pleasing with highly relevant content is important, but SEO related content is equally important. Allowing potential customers to find your site is even more important than having a beautiful site. It doesn’t matter what your website looks like if no-one can find it. Search engines rank web pages for key word relevance when people run searches. Improving your page ranking is an essential part of web site promotion and helps to draw the targeted demographic to your web page. Use the following tips for effective use of SEO to improve your page rank.
First, research the keywords that potential clients or customers are likely to use to find information or providers of your products and services. A little research before developing website content can go a long way. As Mark Twain once said “The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between the lightning and the lightning bug.” Choosing the right keywords for you company is critical.
Second, use Meta tags wisely. A well written Meta tag will allow search engines to find your website and display information coherently to users. For those unfamiliar, Meta tags are the descriptions that search engines display on their results pages. These tags are usually around 150 characters. A Meta tag should incorporate your chosen keywords in grammatically correct English that also describes your company’s services.
For example: Enjoy tasty Italian cuisine at Market Place’s best regional restaurant 123. Italian food offers all the comforts of home cooking in a relaxing atmosphere.
If you own an Italian restaurant located in Market Place this tag provides all the information people need to understand the services you offer. It will pop for a variety of keyword searches including Italian cuisine, Italian food, Market Place restaurant and of course the restaurant name. Including all of these items allows you to ensure that your business will be found when a search is performed.
Another important technique for SEO is local business listings. There are many listing services, including SuperPages.com, YellowPages.com. Yahoo, Google and many other search engines also offer local listings. Companies that list their companies with local listings are given higher page rankings on searches. Local businesses are automatically listed first in search results.
Article submission is another way to bump up your ranking. Publishing articles with backlinks to your website is a great way to generate increased traffic and gain additional exposure on search engines. Articles can be posted on a variety of topics using several different keywords. Using keywords that are too niche to be used for your general web content is a great way to capture a small, but solid, percentage of the market.
Search Engine Optimization is all about making sure that a customer can easily find your business. If your company doesn’t turn up on the first page of results, it won’t get much in the way of web traffic.
When it comes to promoting a product or business online, the one thing that web marketers are concerned with the most is how to drive traffic to their websites. There are tons of information written on this very topic, but relatively fewer people are able to drive huge amounts of traffic to their commercial websites in the most cost efficient way possible.
The most popular and acceptable methods of driving traffic are pay-per-click advertising and traditional search engine optimization. But although both methods are effective and highly doable, they also have innate disadvantages for the small business owner on the internet. The reason for this is both pay-per-click and traditional search engine optimization could cost a considerable amount of both money and time.
For example, running an effective PPC campaign would require hundreds of advertising dollars on a monthly basis. Opting to implement an SEO campaign could mean spending money on outsourcing activities such as content creation, web services, and professional fees for SEO experts. Plus, traditional SEO is more of a long term method to driving traffic, and it could take months before a web marketer experiences any noticeable results.
The solution is to employ a simple strategy that generates more traffic in less time, using the less budget as possible. In fact, this traffic tactic you are about to see can be done with no cost, and if you decide to accelerate it further you can spend a bit of money on the tools and services that make it work. This would involve some basic SEO knowledge but the application of the principles need not be applied in the traditional setting. Here are the steps that you should rinse and repeat at least once or twice a week:
1. Write your SEO content. Every traffic generating tactic online that doesn’t implement any form of paid advertising needs to start with creating SEO content. In this step, just create a short 500 word article which is optimized for the keywords you are targeting. Make sure the topic is of remarkable interest to your target audience.
2. Post your content on your own website or blog first. This is where most marketers get lost. Many make the mistake of submitting to article directories first. This invalidates their own website in search engine placements. There is a long explanation for this, but for now, you have to understand that you should post on your own site first before anything else.
3. Submit your article link to social bookmarking sites. Now that your SEO content is posted on your site or blog, submit the article link on bookmarking sites such as Stumbleupon, Digg and other similar sites. You might get additional direct traffic from these sites, but the main intention for bookmarking is to get the search engines to quickly notice your content and “index” it (include in search engine results). Without bookmarking, it could take days or weeks before the search engines index your page.
4. Once your content is indexed, submit your article to top article directories. Now is the time to submit to article directories so you can benefit from the direct traffic from those sites. Ezine publishers subscribed to these article directories might find your article and republish it on their own sites, creating a chain reaction effect. Not only that, you don’t need to worry anymore about the “duplicate content” violation because your content is already posted on your own site.