Online Business

You have a great site and a great business. People love your site when you tell them about it, and you’ve submitted your site to several search engines, and yet you’ve been unable to truly grow your business. Why? The reason most likely has to do with SEO.

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, has become an increasingly important part of business in recent years. Without it, businesses often fail to grab the attention of passers-by. Here we’ll explain what it is, why you need it, and how you can accomplish your goals.

First off, SEO helps you direct new customers, new readers, or new people to your site. It helps you optimize your site so that your rankings on various search engines rise to the top. SEO does this by using natural methods of common search words to move your site to the top of search lists. Higher placement means more clicks on your site.

So this is how SEO works: Contrary to what you may believe, websites aren’t just randomly ranked when you search for something in Google or in Ask. Nor are the sites just “favorites,” although many of the top choices are popular. The techniques used with SEO are essentially ways to manipulate the “rankings.” Rankings, just like in contests, are ways used to determine which sites will pop up first. If someone enters the search term, “buy hair dryer” into Google, with a ranking of 1 you’ll pop up first on their list. With a ranking of 49, for example, you won’t appear for several pages, and that means the customer probably won’t ever find you.

The question, then, is how to get your rankings up to the top?

This is exactly where SEO comes in. SEO is really the main tool you can use to get your site to the top of the list and to have the higher rankings. Used frequently as an internet marketing strategy, SEO words are used once it’s figured out how search engines work. This means that people have figured out what words are common, what words people use to search for things, and how to use that information to boost ratings.

Once these words are figured out, they’re written into the body of websites and the website codes, or, more easily, the HTML source codes. These are essentially “key words” that are embedded into the site so that when people search for something that matches your site, your site will pop up and your rankings will therefore go up. Even if you have a great product, or a great site, it often can’t be found because of a lack of SEO-trained words. By knowing how this works, and by changing your website around to use them, you can boost your ratings and rankings enormously.

SEO is often considered to have two categories: the good and the bad. The good is referred to as “white hat SEO,” while the bad is referred to as “black hat SEO.” What does this mean? Let’s take a look:

White hat:

·        Follows guidelines

·        Ensures that search engines index and rank what the user will actually see

·        Creates content for users so that users can find it easier

·        Promotes easy access and ease in searching

 

Black hat:

·        Twists guidelines in a bad way

·        Often deceives users by using fake SEO terms

·        Uses hidden texts that have nothing to do with the site

·        Confuses users in an attempt to gain better rankings while providing little information

 

As you can see, white hat SEO is the “good witch” while black hat SEO is the “bad witch.” There are actually many methods and techniques one can use to bump ratings up, but if you really want customers for what you’re honestly trying to get to your site for, then there are real methods you can use to do so. SEO isn’t necessarily right for every site, but if you want to put in a real effort, there are definite things you need to know.

For example, we know that studies show how in America, readers scan pages or paragraphs looking for common words and searchable words. This is why it’s important to include relevant wording on every page, in every code, and especially on the very top of your home page.

 

With internet advertising growing, it’s more important than ever to understand SEO. You might consider hiring an SEO, or a Search Engine Optimizer to plug in key words for you, and if you have not yet created content for your site, wait until you consult an Optimizer to do so. You’ll thank them later because your business will take off.

There are so many ways to advertise your site, but SEO is a natural way of advertising, simply by moving your rankings to the top of search engines so people can find you. You’ll boost sales if you do it, and if you don’t do it, you’re only hurting your own chances.