SEO – Search Engine Optimization

 

People come online for information and primarily use search engines to locate the answers, services and products they are looking for.   It is absolutely crucial to work with these search engines to ensure the people that are looking for your services can find you.   You cannot let this happen by chance.   You need to intentionally setup your web presence so you can easily be found by the right people.   Fortunately many niches contain no competitors who have done anything close to professional grade SEO.  This is where it gets exciting as the potential to transform your sales huge.   Not only will your company or service be able to reach your customers, you will reach them way before your competition.  It’s like owning AAA Towing in the phone book.  You will be the first they call for the tow-truck.   So, first let’s delve into how to get in the modern “phone-book” or search engines, then we’ll talk about being #1.   Don’t get lost in the weeds.   Companies absolutely have to find ways to market their website to people they can serve.   And, quality SEO helps your customers find you!

 

Search Engines

 

In this article we are going to cover the basics of how to market our websites online using a powerful organic technique, SEO.  The most popular search engine is Google, followed by Yahoo and Bing which is owned by Microsoft.   Worth noting is the is the search engine in YouTube which lets you search for videos.

These search engines use special algorithm which determines the rank of your website and displays it in search results when a user searches for it. So, over the last ten years people has optimized their sites so it ranks higher in the search engines and show up when a potential customer is looking for similar products on the website.  Say such as someone types in the keyword “cookie”, the search engines will display websites which has the keyword “cookie” in the website name or in the content. By optimizing the website the search engines should display your website at the top of the search result or in the top five.  Anything less gets exponentially less return.   Adwords, local results, Amazon, Ebay and Google shopping has cluttered up the first page so you really need to rank high to see benefits.  On a side note, another way to rank is by ranking in Amazon, Ebay, LinkedIn or other high domain authority sites use their clout to get you ranked in Google.

In the last few years Google has made some changes in the way they display their search results. Google now  has advertisements, so the first two or three search results are ads. They are usually surrounded by a light pink box.  It’s really easy to pick them as they are usually poorly worded and look like advertisements.  They are broad match.   The organic search results are more exact match and their description and services are more relevant.

Another change that has been chewing up valuable real-estate above the fold is that Google now shows shopping result on the top of the page.   Now sponsored ads and and shopping photos above the organic search results.   Above the fold,  refers to the part of the page you see on your screen when its loads without scrolling down.

 

Organic SEO Services

 

Search engine want organic search results i.e. websites which actually delivers what the user is looking for; and, in the past few years implemented a few changes to stop people from manipulating the rankings.  SEO specialists(now called Black Hat SEO) used to tactics like back-linking and setting up up dummy sites which usually didn’t have any useful content  and were setup only to boost the ranking of sites being optimized.  To fight this Panda and Penguin updates were done at Google and other search engines followed suit. For Google itself to keep it’s relevancy, it de-ranked most of the manipulated sites.    As a result a lot of people using this Black Hat technique to improve the website ranking had to add more integrity to their approach.  Modern, or White-hat SEO, is more organic and content driven back linking.   Sites need to be legitimate with contact info and a properly built infrastructure.    Then websites which are optimized properly show up.  As a result search engine users will get more relevant search results and not useless information.

Now we will look at the marketing concept behind SEO.  Some people give it a negative contention because you are manipulating search results. However, SEO as pure marketing.  It’s getting the word out.  It’s getting it in front of the right people who need your services and products.  So, creative and organic SEO is much different from you know the shot-gun approach where you are manipulating anyone that likes cookies to your site. When optimizing your page you have to plan to do both on-page seo and off-page seo as well.

 

On Page SEO

 

On-page SEO begins with  creating really strong,  content and structure for your site.  Be systematic about the keywords that you use in all of your links on your site.  Your titles are important and what you title your pictures is  also important. Google and other search engines looks specifically at these titles when indexing your site. So having appropriate names will help these search engines index you page properly and in return your site will get a higher ranking.  Create a easy to navigate layout and structure for your site as well.  Use an xml map too.     You must to be consistent.

 

Off Page SEO

 

Off page SEO happens after the On Page SEO work is dialed in.  Using Web 2.0(Social Media) properties as satellite sites, you launch campaigns  relinquishing a never ending array mashups from your quality content.   Off-page SEO is usually done by submitting content as articles, getting the word out about what you do and creating back-links for that from . Use your Web 2.0 properties to promote your useful content and services while generating a ton of backlinks to these sites.  When publishing articles its very important that you also upload these documents on Google plus as Google also takes this into consideration when calculating your site rank.

Having good content on Facebook will help spread the word about your business.  On Facebook when your customer likes a page all their Facebook friend’s can see it as such they become promoters of your website. This word of mouth marketing is the most effective way to market your service or product as people tend to trust recommendations from their friends, and even go so far as to ask for recommendations through social media.  You have to be there.

So, there is a way to build hundred thousand links more organically and being in good favor with Google and higher rankings but first starts on site or on page SEO and then you move to the off-page SEO which involves press releases, lots of articles submission, duplicating, mixing, mashing, re-submitting getting those quality back-links.  And back-links still are very important, about 60 percent of it is what Google give preference to.

So, SEO is so, Godly, Volcanically important.  Whether you are in Sacramento, Los Angeles or wherever…it can make or break your business.  Drastically improving sales is not the only thing, it helps you find more of the ideal customers find you and allow you to serve them better.

Any Questions?  Have any links to good SEO articles or software?

SEO for 2014

by Jason Jelonek

 

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