To market your goods online you initially build a website, but to get that website on the search engines requires the best use of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) techniques. Without SEO your competitors will be stealing precious traffic that you should be getting. To distill it down, it’s a technique to build visibility of your website online, by making sure that search engines recognize your pages, and give them maximum exposure.
Why SEO?
Search engine optimizing (SEO) is in continuous state of development. As search engines became more influential, SEO turned into a tool industries are compelled to use to maintain their current position in the marketplace.
There are several pressing reasons why you need to make the best possible use of SEO techniques when you build your website. To begin with, most people who are looking for a specific business or service are going to use the internet in order to find the best local provider. In 2007, the number of people using the internet to research the best deals on local services was 60%. By 2010, this number had grown to 80%, and there is no reason to believe that this number will not continue to rise.
In addition, 60% or more of internet users who are searching for a specific service will click a result that they find on the very first page of search results. This may be due to inherent laziness or a wish not to be overwhelmed with competing information and offers. At any rate, if you have SEO engineered your website correctly; yours will be among the very first that a search result turns up. Therefore, you will be among the businesses that people will tend to contact first. The potential opportunity involved for your business should be self-evident at this point.
Keyword Research
SEO consists of three main parts. The first is Keyword Research. This is the process that people use, in order to refine their search for the results that correspond best with the specific bit of information, or the precise service, that they are searching for on the internet. 80% of unsuccessful searches are followed by keyword refinement. This means that, after a search for “BBQ grills” turns up too many unrelated results, that a person will further refine their search, in order to look for “local BBQ grill providers”.
On-Site Page Optimization
There are several different components of a website page that will allow visitors to your page, as well as search engines, to know exactly what your website pages are about, and what specific products you offer on them. These different components, taken together, are the elements of On-Site Optimization.
Over 90% of internet marketers are in agreement that content creation is the most effective component of successful SEO. So, your page needs to have plenty of fresh content, incorporating the different elements that make for successful On-Site Optimization. These elements include a descriptive page URL, page titles, and descriptive headings for each of the elements of your web pages, Meta tag descriptions, image alt attributes, and plenty of internal links and body contents. Taken together, all of these will ensure that your page has plenty for potential customers to read and look at. This combination of images and descriptive content will ensure maximum customer response.
Off-Site Optimization
Off-Site Optimization is the process by which you ensure that potential visitors to your page will be able to find your site, even if they have not specifically put in a search for your page. This can be accomplished by building and sharing links with other websites, posting on other forums, leaving blog comments that mention your site, and by building pages on social networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook, etc.
For example, using a social media network such as Twitter can increase your business opportunities exponentially. Twitter generates over 340 million tweets, and handles over 1.6 billion search queries per day. You can certainly make use of Twitter to get your share of all this searching! 63% of small business owners find that making use of social media, such as Facebook, Twitter, etc., increases their business opportunities, and the range of customers they can reach.
57% of marketers have acquired new customers via their blogs. So, why not put a blog up on WordPress or another blog site, and get the word out there? In addition, you can share your info with other bloggers, and increase the range of your advertising.
