SEO: What does that mean?
The letters SEO stand for search engine optimization. If this is a new phrase for you, don’t feel bad, you are not alone. Most people stare blankly when the phrase is mentioned. Some call it an art. Others call it a necessity. Everyone agrees that there is much to learn. What you will learn here are the basics.
It seems that everyone has a website. Truly “unique” companies no longer exist. Everyone has competitors. All of those competitors have websites. The goal of SEO is to stay ahead of the competition. That is, you want your business to rank higher than the competition when someone types something into a search box.
Let’s say you sell Avon. If you type Avon into Google, you’ll get 39,100,000 results, but the first page will only contain 10. The ultimate goal is to be one of the ten websites on that first page. There are a couple of ways to do it.
Today, Google, Yahoo and most other search engines sell space. At the top of the Avon results, you’ll see “sponsored links.” Those are companies that paid a fee to be on that first page. If you go to the second page, you will see that there are more sponsored links. The cost of advertising your business with these engines is determined by the page and position you want your website to be on.
It’s similar to the way newspapers sell advertising. Ads in the top half cost more than ads in the bottom half. Ads on the front page cost much more than ads on the back page. When people search for something online, they often click on the first thing they see. That would be the first page that appears.
Organic search engine optimization costs nothing. It’s the idea of making the most of keywords; things that people might be looking for when searching for your business. Going back to the Avon example, they could be looking for cosmetics, jewelry, colognes, bug spray, gifts, or anything else that Avon sells. If you sold Avon, your SEO goal would be to have a page somewhere on your site with those strategically placed keywords.
Now, you can’t repeat the words too many times, because web crawlers would consider it spam. There are several software packages that help individuals and businesses get the most out of search engine optimization. If you’re just starting out, some software might be a good investment. Go to Google and do a search on different SEO software packages.
In addition to proper keyword placement, SEO involves getting quality inbound links to your site, listing in major directories, and providing targeted, quality content, among other things.
You must remember that search engine optimization is not an exact science. We can only try to optimize, but any effort is better than none.