Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a technique to increase the ranking of any web page or website on search engines like Google or Yahoo, for a given keyword or keyword phrase search. A higher search rank will produce a higher result in the organic search results and generally more traffic to the web site from search keyword traffic. Organic search traffic is generally high quality and can be more easily converted into repeat visits or product purchases. As well higher rankings give your business and brand more exposure.

Importance of SEO in Internet Marketing

The basic tenant of Web marketing is to increase the traffic and awareness of any web site and their respective products and services on Internet. As well the more traffic you can receive for free from organic search results means you need to spend less on Search Engine Marketing (i.e. buying traffic)

On average Search drives an average of 50-75% of all visits to web sites. Therefore it is very important that search engines direct traffic to your site instead of others. This is where SEO comes into play: generating more traffic for your site.

Site Optimization

Keyword Research: determining what to use keywords is a very important. Make a list of words and phrases that are related to your business and then use tools like Google Trends to determine which are the best for your business.

URL Format: having an easy to read URL structure makes it easier for search engine crawlers to determine how to read your site. It will also make it easier for users to remember subdirectories on your site so that they can go back directly. Ensure that the main keywords of your page are in the page name or URL structure. Also choosing a domain that is related to your business and its main keywords can be helpful.

Titles & Meta Tags: For titles try moving your brand name to the end and start your titles with the main words of your site or page. Meta Tags and Meta Descriptions should also be dynamic and customized to each page.

Content Optimization: Content of the webpage should be carefully written using the selected keywords effectively and should not cross 5-10% density amongst the total content of the webpage. Other factors are: wise usage of Heading Tags (H1, H2, H3), selective usage of bolding, italics, colors and intra-page hyperlinking on keywords and phrases.

Content Generation: Use a blog on your site to generate keyword rich articles about your site’s product or services. Not only will you be providing users with interesting information you will be generating text rich pages that search engine crawlers like to index.

Page structure: Most sites now use CSS or cascade style sheets. Make sure to use alt text for images, using headers and footer links. Consider using image sprites to increase page performance.

Site Map: Submit a site map to the major search engines and keep it updated. A visitor friendly (HTML) version and a machine friendly (XML) version will help search engines know where your pages are. Also be sure to use a robots.txt file to tell search engines what not to crawl.

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