At this point, most businesses have realized that Search Engine Optimization (or SEO as it's most commonly referred to) is a crucial part of any business.
However, many people are still unclear as to what it really is and why it's so important.
If you miss the mark, it could cost you and your company valuable time and a great deal of money without yielding the kind of results you expect.
What Is SEO and Why Is It Important? SEO is the process of optimizing your website so that it is rich in relevant content and search engine friendly.
In other words, when you optimize a site, you are doing two things: you are going through a process that will help search engines rank your web site favorably for relevant keywords so that possible clients can find you and potentially purchase your goods and services.
This process includes a number of steps, everything from content to code layout to inbound links.
They all have an effect on your optimization and page rank.
But there is a second thing to keep in mind while optimizing for search engines: you want to optimize for visitors too! Your content has to be relevant to your keywords and topic at hand, AND it must also be informative and serve its purpose- which in most cases is to get your visitor interested in you! If your site is not user friendly, your good ranks with Google will only increase your traffic, but not your business.
A poorly optimized website runs a number of risks.
If you're not optimized at all, you may show up on page five hundred of any given search, and let me tell you, that will do you no good.
If you do not have clean source code and informative content, you may not be indexed at all! If search engine bots and spiders are unable to crawl your page, they are unable to index it; therefore you will not rank at all.
Another risk is if you do in fact seek a company to optimize your site but you don't do your homework.
Search Engine Optimization is just like any other business where you have to seek out experienced professionals with proven success.
Believe it or not there are some people out there still using unethical search engine optimization methods.
You want to seek a company who has years of experience and many happy clients to back up their work.
It's All About Location! When you are first opening a business, a primary concern is the location of your establishment.
For example, if you were opening a business in New York, and let's say you do lawn mower repairs, you wouldn't want to open up in the heart of New York City would you? There'd be very little business! You'd be better off on Long Island or upstate New York where people have yards.
But if you were a professional interior designer, you'd want to be in Manhattan or out in the Hamptons.
So how can location matter on the internet? Oh, trust me it matters! The first thing you do when you are looking for any given service, product, or information is usually to jump onto the internet and type a few keywords into your search engine of choice.
The search will yield thousands and sometimes millions of results! How long do you poke around before you enter a new set of keywords or settle for something you've already found? Probably not very long.
If someone typed in your chosen keywords but you ranked on page 7 instead of 1 or 2, there is a very low chance they will find their way to your page.
This is exactly why page rank is so incredibly important.
Your rank is in direct correlation to the amount of exposure your website gets and the number of people that will visit your site.
If one in every four visitors spends money with your company and you are ranking well and receiving a great deal of traffic, then it's safe to say you'll see an increase in business! But if you're site is not ranked well, and you have low web traffic, very few people will be finding their way to your site to purchase your goods and services.
Overall, finding an excellent search engine optimization company is crucial to any internet business.
If you're not ranked well on search engines, then why even bother?