Creating a website is only the beginning of your foray into Internet marketing. A more important component to consider is how you plan to get visitors to find your website among the millions of others floating in cyberspace. This is where search engine optimization (SEO) comes into play. SEO is what gives your website the ability to get found online. It is the mechanism that determines where you show up on the search engine list of results when a prospect is looking for the products or services you offer. Unfortunately, unless the customer already has your website address or has previously done business with you, finding your website is going to be like finding a needle in a haystack.
By utilizing SEO, you can ensure that prospective clients are able to find you. Effective SEO can place your webpage on the first page of the search results page, increasing your likelihood of generating traffic to your site. There are several SEO practices that can help you drive more traffic to your website.
It’s all about content
If you want search engines to find you, particularly Google, you need to make sure your website is chock full of high-quality content, keyword and keyword phrases that are relevant to your target audience. This is not the time to fill your website with fluff or poorly written content. Most search engines are designed to ferret out websites that are trying to trick the systemby including excessive filler or keywords. Remember, your website is a direct extension of your company, products and services. You need to offer your clients content that has true value. Otherwise, you risk turning them away. You want visitors to leave your site feeling like they received something of value, whether it be a product, service or information they can use to make their lives easier.
Get Listed with Google Places
Let’s face it, Google is a mammoth search engine, so you would do well to make sure your business is listed on this site. This can give your business the local exposure it needs, because remember that local business accounts for a large portion of the demographic that sustains your business. Once you enter the particulars regarding your business and current location, Google Places takes care of the rest. Whenever someone in your area, or someone looking to do business in your region, does a search online for your products or services, a link to your website appears as a search result.
Avoid duplicate content
Avoid Duplicate Content
Search engines have to wade through millions of pages, and duplicated content means more content to sift through. If a search engine goes through your site and finds pages with duplicate content, it will not present each page on the results page. Instead if will pick one of the pages, which may not actually be the one you would want it to show. To avoid this, make sure each page of your website is unique in terms of content.
Put SEO to work for you
The list of SEO best practices can go on forever, but your best bet is to remember that search engines are looking for pages that are easy to find, crawl and index. Use SEO to make your pages as search-engine friendly as possible in order to maximize your content relevancy and raise your ranking. Investing your time to discover the high-quality SEO tactics that can enhance your site will give you the results you need to grow your business and rise above the competition.