Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
What is SEO?
When someone enters a search word or phrase into Google or Yahoo Search, where does your website place on the list of results? If it places high on the list (say the top 3-4), you probably receive a lot of clicks from these searches and people visit your website. If you place low (not even on the first page), you probably receive few leads. Improving your place on the search results list is called Search Engine Optimization (SEO), and it is what I do as an SEO consultant and specialist for small businesses.
How does SEO work?
It involves two primary areas… on-page and off-page SEO:
1. How well do your website pages match the keyword or keyphrase that someone types in. So your first task is to develop a list of the primary keywords you want your website to be found for; and then update your website to include those keywords. This is on-page SEO.
2. The second stage of SEO is getting as many quality inbound links pointing to your website as possible. The more quality inbound links you have, the higher priority Google gives your website. A quality inbound link is one that comes from a website that is in the same business area your website is about. This is off-page SEO.
SEO marketing can lead to amazing results (like raising you from 100+ place to 1st-2nd place). That’s search engine web marketing!
Easy things to do for on-page SEO:
- Improve “page titles” (text at top of browser window) to include keywords.
- Add “link title tags” to all links to internal pages on every page.
- Add “alt image tags” to every image on your site.
Actions for off-page SEO – list your site in popular directories:
Yahoo! Director
Best of the Web Directory
Business.com Directory