If you aren’t yet aware of its meaning, SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. Simple enough, but just what is SEO and what is it for? This is a more complex matter.

Search engine optimization refers to a number of different techniques used for building websites and the content on these sites to improve their placident in the search engine results pages.

The idea of SEO is to make your website more visible to web users who search for content with search engines (which is essentially everyone who uses the World Wide Web at all).

If your website is a personal page meant primarily for yourself and perhaps a small number of family members and friends, it may not be all that important to you to have a site which is optimized.

However, if your website is business oriented, it matters a great deal.

Why SEO Matters

 
Think of it this way: if your business decided to stop being listed in the phone book, took the signs and awnings down and stopped advertising, how successful would you be at attracting new business?

Search engines have for many largely replaced the function once performed by local phone directories. That’s why SEO matters!

In order to attract (and even retain) business, you need to have a high profile where your customers are likely to see you – and these days, this place is online.

It once was that if people couldn’t find you in the phone book, your business was in serious trouble. Now, of course the question is how easy it is for people to find your website.

You may have a great looking website and even use the URL in your printed marketing materials and advertising campaigns; but not everyone is going to see your advertisident in the paper.

People tend to look at web sites when they’re actually in need of something and even if a potential customer has seen your ads, it’s not at all certain they’ll remember to go to your site immediately when they’re looking for what you offer.

Instead, your potential customers are using search engines – which is why your business may need some help from a professional SEO consultant to ensure that consumers will find you when they really are looking for you. That’s why SEO matters!

One of the things we should look at first here is what the search engines actually see when their crawlers come to your site.

The search engines don’t know (or care) about your site’s design in terms of graphics (though they will read the alternate text for these images – if you don’t know about this important elident of web design, an SEO consultant can help you with this).

All the search engines see when they look at your site is text and nothing but text. For this reason, sites which are entirely Flash-based are not generally recommended from an SEO perspective (many visitors don’t like this either).

What the search engine crawlers are looking at on your site is the actual text contained on your website as well as the information contained in what is known as the headers of your site’s HTML, most notably your title tags.

These tell the search engine crawlers what your site is about – if you don’t include these (or use an entirely graphics or animation based site), the search engines really can’t tell what your site is supposed to be about.

This can be fatal to your site, as it basically assures that no one will be able to find you with a search engine query.

As for how the search engines determine page ranking, this is a much more complex question. The short answer is relevance: but the relevance of any given website is calculated in a number of ways.

The exact nature of the algorithms used by each search engine is different and each is closely guarded proprietary information – to further complicate matters, these algorithms are constantly evolving.

However, there are certain things which the SEO experts have managed to figure out through analysis and reverse engineering of search results and websites which are universally applicable.

This is what enables an SEO consultant to look over a website and suggest changes to the site to increase its visibility in terms of the search engines.

The alterations which can improve a site’s search engine rankings include fine tuning the copy on the site to make it tune with the site’s content, its meta tags or especially popular search terms which are relevant to the content.

There are other changes which will improve a site’s search engine ranking which are not visible to visitors to the site.

Do you see Why SEO Matters?

These are changes which affect what the search engine crawlers see when they visit the site and help this to more accurately determine what the site is about. There are yet other SEO techniques which your site should avoid using.

What should you avoid?

CLICK HERE to read the rest of this article.

About the Author: John S. Britsios is a Web Architect & Senior SEO Consultant, specializing in Web Content Accessibility, Usability Testing, Search Engine Optimization & Internet Marketing.

Join the conversation! We invite you to share your comments below Why SEO Matters.

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More Articles about Why SEO Matters

• Niche Reaper takes the guess work out of Keyword Research and SEO
• What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?
• What is Social Networking?

 
I HATE Keyword Research! What about you?

Let’s face it, good Keywords are the foundation of your online business, especially when it comes to getting traffic.

The big downside is that doing thorough keyword research is tedious, long-winded and down-right BORING!

Here’s the cure: – http://budurl.com/keywordsuccess

You know what I mean, it’s mind numbing to have to go through the whole process of: -

~ brainstorming a potential market where there are enough searches to make it worth targeting

~ checking the level of competition to decide whether it’s “doable”

~ try and take the competition on, without knowing for sure the real “value” or profitability of the market, or whether it will make you any money…

Sometimes it feels more like blindly “taking a chance”, rather than making a solid, informed business decision!

So how would it feel to have access to a system that took away all of the tedium, guess work and pain of getting it wrong?

A system that works 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, all year long, scouring through tens of thousands of potential niche markets for you every single day…

and then serves up just those that are worth your time and effort!

those niches that will really make you money!

your wait is over!

that system is here: -

The premier Keyword Research tool

 
http://budurl.com/keywordsuccess

WARNING! Places are severely limited and filling up quickly, so you need to act right now!!!

Enjoy,

Joseph

Join the conversation! I’d love to hear your comments about Keyword Research below!

If you aren’t yet aware of its meaning, SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. Simple enough, but just what is SEO and what is it for? This is a more complex matter.

Search engine optimization refers to a number of different techniques used for building websites and the content on these sites to improve their placident in the search engine results pages.

The idea of SEO is to make your website more visible to web users who search for content with search engines (which is essentially everyone who uses the World Wide Web at all).

If your website is a personal page meant primarily for yourself and perhaps a small number of family members and friends, it may not be all that important to you to have a site which is optimized.

However, if your website is business oriented, it matters a great deal.

Think of it this way: if your business decided to stop being listed in the phone book, took the signs and awnings down and stopped advertising, how successful would you be at attracting new business?

Search engines have for many largely replaced the function once performed by local phone directories.

In order to attract (and even retain) business, you need to have a high profile where your customers are likely to see you – and these days, this place is online.

It once was that if people couldn’t find you in the phone book, your business was in serious trouble. Now, of course the question is how easy it is for people to find your website.

You may have a great looking website and even use the URL in your printed marketing materials and advertising campaigns; but not everyone is going to see your advertisident in the paper.

People tend to look at web sites when they’re actually in need of something and even if a potential customer has seen your ads, it’s not at all certain they’ll remember to go to your site immediately when they’re looking for what you offer.

Instead, your potential customers are using search engines – which is why your business may need some help from a professional SEO consultant to ensure that consumers will find you when they really are looking for you.

One of the things we should look at first here is what the search engines actually see when their crawlers come to your site.

The search engines don’t know (or care) about your site’s design in terms of graphics (though they will read the alternate text for these images – if you don’t know about this important elident of web design, an SEO consultant can help you with this).

All the search engines see when they look at your site is text and nothing but text. For this reason, sites which are entirely Flash-based are not generally recommended from an SEO perspective (many visitors don’t like this either).

What the search engine crawlers are looking at on your site is the actual text contained on your website as well as the information contained in what is known as the headers of your site’s HTML, most notably your title tags.

These tell the search engine crawlers what your site is about – if you don’t include these (or use an entirely graphics or animation based site), the search engines really can’t tell what your site is supposed to be about.

This can be fatal to your site, as it basically assures that no one will be able to find you with a search engine query.

As for how the search engines determine page ranking, this is a much more complex question. The short answer is relevance: but the relevance of any given website is calculated in a number of ways.

The exact nature of the algorithms used by each search engine is different and each is closely guarded proprietary information – to further complicate matters, these algorithms are constantly evolving.

However, there are certain things which the SEO experts have managed to figure out through analysis and reverse engineering of search results and websites which are universally applicable.

This is what enables an SEO consultant to look over a website and suggest changes to the site to increase its visibility in terms of the search engines.

The alterations which can improve a site’s search engine rankings include fine tuning the copy on the site to make it tune with the site’s content, its meta tags or especially popular search terms which are relevant to the content.

There are other changes which will improve a site’s search engine ranking which are not visible to visitors to the site.

These are changes which affect what the search engine crawlers see when they visit the site and help this to more accurately determine what the site is about. There are yet other SEO techniques which your site should avoid using.

What should you avoid?

Let’s take a look at a hypothetical scenario. Suppose your kitchen wares business has a website which is doing well in the results for tea kettles, frying pans and the like.

However, you’d like to further increase traffic – how about trying to rank high in the search engine results for some other non-kitchen related search terms?

This may help to increase traffic to your site, but there are reasons why everyone doesn’t do this. If SEO really worked like that, every site on the web would optimize their content for whatever the most popular searches happened to be.

There are many websites which do this simply to get you to their site by any means. This is one of the several different SEO techniques which are considered “search engine spamming” and should be avoided.

If you’re considering working with a professional search engine optimization firm, you should avoid any company who uses this technique or any of the others which follow:

* Keyword stuffing. * Misleading redirects and link/URL cloaking. * Duplicating content between pages of a website. * Misspelling words and names commonly used as search terms. * The use of unrelated links (also known as link farming). * Or for that matter, any other technique aimed at fooling the search engines.

These “black hat” SEO methods can work as a means of generating traffic, but they only work for so long before the search engines (and the public) catch on.

Once search engines figure out what you’re up to, they often respond by un-indexing your site, making it impossible for anyone to find you with that search engine.

Don’t think you won’t get caught either; the major search engines encourage users to report these deceptive tactics. You can get better and more lasting results with ethical SEO methods; and without having to worry about having your site blacklisted.

Is Your Site Doing Well Enough In Search Results?

Unless you’re already in the top couple of results in the major engines, chances are you’d like to do better regardless of where your site stands at present.

As any expert search engine optimization consultant will tell you, SEO is a process, not a single task. It’s something that you’ll likely have to continue working on as your site slowly but steadily makes its way up the rankings.

This organic SEO approach is the most effective and will get you to where you want to be sooner or later; the most important thing is to ensure that your business’ website is optimized for search engines.

Failing to implident good SEO practices is one nearly certain way to set yourself up for a fall. It is much like the unadvertised, unlisted and unmarked business we discussed earlier.

People who are ready and willing to do business with you will pass you by, unaware that your site even exists. Whether or not to use SEO as an integral part of your marketing strategy isn’t even a question anymore – the question is how you’ll go about it.

About the Author: John S. Britsios is a Web Architect & Senior SEO Consultant, specializing in Web Content Accessibility, Usability Testing, Search Engine Optimization & Internet Marketing.

Search engines constantly change their algorithms, shuffle their indexes, merge results and share content. The only consistent thing about marketing your website to them is that what works really well today probably won’t work so well tomorrow.

That’s why you need an experienced search marketing professional who keeps two fingers on the pulse of the major search engines. If Google hiccups, we know about it. If Yahoo! gets stubborn, we’ll coax those rankings back to the first page.

Working with search engines is a long-term, high maintenance relationship and we’re dedicated to managing that relationship so you don’t have to, and at an investment you can feel good about.

So How Exactly Does SEO Work?

This is the million dollar question. And we can almost guarantee you that for every person you ask, you’ll get a different answer. That’s because marketing to the search engines is like any creative endeavor: cooking, painting, carpentry, etc.

If you ask five people to bake a cake, you’ll get five unique cakes each with different ingredients. Ask ten people to craft you a chair and you’ll get ten distinct pieces each with its own style.

Because the search engines change their ranking algorithms (the equations they use to analyze a website’s reputation and rankability) so often, and they each use such widely varying criteria, there are literally hundreds of ways to promote your site to the first page of search results.

However, there are certain universal guidelines regarding what central principles and elements are vital to your search marketing strategy. There are also very clear rules against certain practices that attempt to cheat or trick the search engines.

Fundamental Principles for Successful SEO

1. Content

Content will always be your key ticket to top rankings. Without it, any rankings achieved will be short-lived. For content to help your ranking, however, you need a lot of it and it has to be updated regularly. Most importantly, each page of content must target a specific keyword term.

However, if your site possesses content that is auto-generated or is poorly written, i.e. a human visitor would not find it useful and informative, the search engines will figure it out and demote your site, possibly even blacklisting you and preventing you from showing up in their results at all.

We develop well-written, keyword targeted content for your site that is updated consistently and monitored for rankability. Your business will enjoy the added benefit of an ever-growing resource library of information that your site visitors will enjoy and which will also help with your sales conversions.

2. Links

More specifically, one-way links from authoritative sites in your niche market. You can find out how authoritative a site is by looking at its Page Rank.

Page Rank, or PR, is a ranking system Google devised to show how much weight or authority a particular site has. No one can say the exact methodology Google uses to assign Page Rank, however all SEO experts agree that it largely has to do with the amount of incoming links a site has, how long it’s been around, and visitor activity on the site (yes Google even knows how long someone remains on your site after they click through from the search results!).

What this means for you is that you want as many high PR sites linking into your site as possible (without you linking back to them). This is because Google gives these sites a lot of respect and values their “recommendations” signaled by who they choose to link to.

If all this sounds a bit complicated, think of it this way:

Google and the major search engines analyze your website the way scholars judge academic papers. The more journals and other reputable papers cite your research and quote you, the more authoritative and “expert” you become.

We negotiate inbound links on your behalf, concentrating on links from sites related to your market whose reputation thematically relates to the reputation you’re trying to build. We also make sure these links deep-link into your website, meaning that they link to various pages in your website, rather than just to your homepage (also a sign that you’re highly authoritative).

3. Visitor Behavior

Google knows everything. Other Search Engines like Yahoo! and MSN aren’t so far behind. If a visitor clicks from their search engine into your site, and leaves immediately, Google knows that they didn’t find what they were looking for. If too many people do this, Google will drop you from their rankings because they assume you’re not relevant for that particular term. This is why site design, compelling content, and conversion analysis are important.

We offer Website Conversion Optimization in addition to SEO to help you address this particular issue.

4. Human Idiosyncracies

Google wants to know that a human is running the show. Automated SEO software, or any techniques that add hundreds of pages to your site within a week, or which create content automatically, are a dead giveaway that you’re doing something Google doesn’t like.

This won’t just get you knocked off the top 10 rankings – Google and other search engines will ban your site from ever showing up in their results – even when someone searches your exact domain name. This is why any illegal or unethical techniques will kill your business.

We hand craft every single page of information on your website and upload those pages consistently over several months.

Universally Illegal SEO Practices: Avoid at ALL Costs

Search engines may be vague about what you can do to get top rankings.
However, they are not vague about those practices that will get you banned from their rankings. For instance, Google provides Webmaster Guidelines that detail what you are NOT to do when promoting your website.

When you are looking for an SEO professional, be aware of these illegal techniques and the different “pet names” given them by dubious fly-by-night companies. We’ve provided several of them here for your easy reference. You can also download these tips in an easy-to-read PDF format.