What is SEO? Search engine optimization, or SEO, is the process of optimizing a website so that it ranks high in search engine results for a specific keyword or keyword phrase. According to searchenginewatch.com, the number one position in Google gets 33% of search engine traffic. 90% of searchers won’t look past page one.
How do you get to the number one position in Google search?
Search engines rank websites by relevance to keyword, popularity of website, and favor local search results.
The Importance of Keywords
What are keywords? These are words or phrases people are using when they use Google search or another search engine. In order to rank well for a certain keyword, your web page must be search engine optimized for that keyword.
SEO Tips For On Page Search Engine Optimization
Place your keyword in your web page’s url, title tag, image (alt) tags, headings, and throughout the content of the page. Avoid keyword stuffing: Google will penalize you if your keyword appears too often. Be sure to write for the website visitor first and the search engine second. If a visitor comes to your site and is turned off by poorly written content, they are probably not going to contact your business to learn more about your products or services.
Consider hiring an SEO content writer: these writers are trained to write engaging content that is also search engine optimized. An SEO expert will monitor your search engine traffic to determine which keywords are generating the most leads for your business and will craft web page content using those keywords.
The Importance of Website Popularity
Consider the keyword “SEO”. There are so many SEO companies out there that a search query for SEO on Google Search yields 347,000,000 results. Many of these results have the word SEO optimized in all of the correct parts of the page, including the url, title, alt tag, headings and in the content of the website page. How does Google determine which of these results should go on page one? Google populates search results by listing the sites with the most potential traffic first. Website popularity is determined by the number of back links, or links to a website, how recent the link occurred, and the popularity of the linking website is taken into account. For instance, a link from a web page that gets millions of views daily will increase web page rank for a website more than a link from a web page that has only a few dozen visitors daily.
How do you increase the popularity of your website? Start a blog and share your blog posts on social media. Measure social media ROI, or return of investment, by tracking which social media pages are generating the most traffic to your website. The best social media marketing ROI strategy is when you are able to determine what traffic leads to the most sales for your business. Consider using a leads magnet such as a free download or software trial in order to get contact information from your website visitors. Once you have a prospect’s email address, for example, you can easily track if the prospect becomes a sale.
The Great Equalizer: Local Search
No matter what your SEO strategy, it is difficult for a small business to compete with a Fortune 500 company. Fortunately for small businesses, web page rank is also determined by proximity. Be sure to put your address in all of your social media pages, business listings and web pages in order to maximize the visibility of your business on the search engines.
SEO Consultant Roger Bryan