2. We all have heard that search engines are the number one
resource for consumers to research and buy products or
services online. In fact, marketing studies have shown that
over 70% of web surfers use search engines to locate
online merchants. The ramification of this statistic is
simple: if you want to reach the members of your target
market you need to make sure that your business web site
appears in popular search engines.
3. Search engine optimization (SEO) can help you achieve
this. SEO is a crucial online marketing technique. It helps
you to get your web site to appear in search engine result
pages (SERPs) for keywords that that are relevant to your
business. For example, if you are a business coach, and
someone is searching for "business coach", it would be
great for your business if your web site appears in the first
10 results.
4. So what exactly is search engine optimization? SEO
includes selecting the best keywords for the body of the
page as well as other page elements (the title tag,
keyword and description meta tags, etc.) Carefully chosen
keywords provide "hints" that search engines use to
classify your site and to determine whether your site
should appear for certain search keywords. On-page
keyword optimization by itself will help your rankings.
However, holistic search engine optimization is required to
achieve optimal results. For the best placement, focus on
SEO as a whole, rather than concentrate on a particular
technique.
5. Here are a few important elements of holistic search
engine optimization:
6. - Have good content. After all, content is king (or queen,
whichever the case may be). Without content there isn't
much of a site. The content must walk a fine line between
providing useful content and including sufficient and
relevant keywords for search engines.
7. Often it is difficult to optimize your product or service
pages for search engines, since the main goal of these
items is to showcase the benefits of your offer. On the
other hand, it is easier to optimize blog posts and articles.
In fact, you can create entire articles and blog posts
around keywords that are popular with your target
market.
8. - Have consistent navigation. Both your web site visitors
and search engine spiders navigate your web site through
links that connect different pages. Consistent navigation
ensures that your visitors can reach every page on your
web site from every other page. On top of that, you will
you get the most out of your search engine optimization
efforts.
9. - Get links to your site. Links to your web site play a very
important role in holistic search engine optimization.
Many popular search engines evaluate your web site's
popularity based on counting the number of links that
point to your site. The more popular your web site is, the
better rankings it gets on search engines. The best links
are links from reputable, quality web site that have
complimentary or related content.
10.
11. Take a holistic approach to web site optimization. Apply
SEO to your web site as a whole, and always evaluate the
overall impact of your marketing efforts.