SEO: What it is. What it Does.

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If you have a website or are researching websites, you’re sure to have heard the term SEO bandied about quite a bit. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. SEO techniques are used to improve the visibility and ranking of a website when people conduct a search on search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing.

Generally speaking, the higher on the search page that a website displays and the more frequently a page ap­pears in searches, the more visitors it will receive from search engine users. How optimal is it to appear on the first page of a search? Very. Up to 42% of search users click the top-ranking link, as few as 8% click the second-ranking link. Click-through rate (CTR) drops thereafter. Sixty-two percent of users click a link on the first page of search results, 23 percent go to the second page.

The drive to come up on the first page of a search — and in the first, second, or third place — is one determined by traffic and relevance and can be an expensive one. Most small businesses may not be able to justify the time and money spent to come first in search engines that continually change their algorithms, and to outrank simi­lar, larger companies with more traffic. However, there are some things you can do that will help.

First Steps

When optimizing a website, you must first consider how search engines work and what search engines are used more often by your target customer. Also, think about how people conduct a search. What actual search terms might they enter when searching for a business or ser­vice such as yours?

The next step is for you, or your website developer, to edit website content to increase its relevance to specific keywords and to be sure everything is properly coded to remove barriers that may prevent search engine “spiders” from crawling through and indexing your site. Since effective SEO often requires changes to the HTML source code of a website and to a website’s content, SEO tactics can, and should, be incorporated into web design and development.

Five Things You Can Do for Better SEO

1. Title Tags – Each page should have a unique, descriptive title tag. A description relative to the content on the page helps people who are searching for you, your product, or your services.

2. Content – Content is King. Unique, infor­mative, and relevant site content helps SEO. Use keywords within that content that you feel best describe your business and will be words customers will search for when look­ing for services that your business supplies.

3. Links – Build working links between the pages of your website and with other trusted websites. Ask business affiliates and other trusted businesses to link to your site as well. You should also use Social Media like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and blogs to create links to your website and encourage followers to visit.

4. Keywords – When your website developer lists keywords in the HTML files of your pag­es, be sure that those same words appear with frequency in the content on your site.

5. Updates – Fresh content will bring search engine “spiders” back to index your site, and will bring your customers back as well, so update your site as frequently as possible. You may want to update some pages once or twice a month, and others less frequently. The more traffic you receive, the higher you will come up in searches.

Conclusion

SEO is a critical part of online business success. If your content is not recognized and ranked highly by search engines, people will not be able to find you and if they can’t find you, they won’t be able to interact with you. It is those relationships that eventually lead to greater success for you and your business.

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Author

  • Allan Berger

    Allan Berger has 30+ years of experience as an award winning business development consultant and coach. He is responsible for a multitude of successful projects involving leadership and employee development, project management consulting and training, and information technology solutions. His specialty is helping business owners and their leadership teams to think outside of the box. Mr. Berger helps them to expand existing products and services for new customers and offer new products and services to existing customers. As an experienced business owner, consultant and coach, he shows individuals and organizations how to maximize their potential. He helps individuals understand their strengths and weaknesses. He coaches them as they develop into effective leaders. Allan helps organizations to quickly diagnose business issues and formulate cost-effective, practical solutions. He then helps them rapidly implement improvements. Allan spends much of his time supporting clients in the financial services, healthcare, manufacturing, pharmaceutical, professional services, retail and utility industries. For more information about Allan, vist his website at: www.bergerbusinessadvisors.com

10 Responses

  1. Geoff Clarke says:

    Allan, Thanks for the useful primer on SEO. It is interesting to learn that fresh content will bring the "spiders" back – do you know how that works, or how often they come? Do all search engines work the same way? Thanks again, Geoff

  2. Geoff Clarke says:

     

    Via LinkedIn Groups

    Group: Official Direct Marketing Association
    Discussion: SEO: What it is. What it Does.

    Michael, Thanks for bringing this article to our atttention. There are some useful tips here and links to other interesting articles on the same topic.
    Thansk again.
    Geoff
    Posted by Geoff Clarke

  3. Angela Lisle says:

     

    Via LinkedIn Groups

    Group: AssociationofWriters.com
    Discussion: SEO: What it is. What it Does.

    Some interesting and useful tips…I sometimes wish my book's content wasn't so diverse!
    Posted by Angela Lisle

  4. Merna Summers says:

     

    Via LinkedIn Groups

    Group: Publishing and editing professionals
    Discussion: SEO: What it is. What it Does.

    Thanks very much for this. It covers a subject I have been wanting to know more about.
    Posted by Merna Summers

  5. Saskia Kleingeld says:

     

    Via LinkedIn Groups

    Group: Social Media & SEO
    Discussion: SEO: What it is. What it Does.

    A nice short article that points out some of the basics. A good introducing overview for people that are new to SEO.
    Posted by Saskia Kleingeld

  6. Richard Ladzinski says:

    Via LinkedIn Groups

    Group: Professional Writers
    Discussion: SEO: What it is. What it Does.

    Thanks for the helpful little summary. Some more details would be nice, but this gives me a pretty good idea what to look for in my own development and writing.
    Posted by Richard Ladzinski

  7. Alan says:

    Very informative. I would like to add that the addition of other media, images, video and sound is very helpful. Crawlers can not understand this content and rely on the information in the tags for indexing. Proper indexing will improve search engine result..
    Allan, what do suggest is the proper percentage for key words to avoid getting banged by search engines for kw spamming?

  8. Joyce Aldawood says:

    I wish there were people willing to briefly describe SEO  when I first needed the help! As a senior citizen, optimizing a website was a horrible struggle – and I am still learning.  Thank you for the tip on title tags.

  9. IOmundo says:

    I think there are more things to say about on-page SEO, which is very important, although many guys focus on links. Using the keywords in alt and titles for images, in bold, italic, h1, internal links, all these help in increasing the relevance of the page for a specific keyword

  10. Altány says:

    I do consider all the ideas you have offered in your post. They’re really convincing and will definitely work. Nonetheless, the posts are too short for beginners. May just you please extend them a bit from next time? Thanks for the post.