If you have a website of any kind – but especially one for your business – you need to understand the importance of SEO. SEO, as you probably already know, stands for Search Engine Optimization, and it refers to the process of fine-tuning your website so that it has an improved chance of ranking highly in the search results for specific keywords. Why is this so important? Search engines such as Google drive the majority of traffic on the internet, so having your business rank toward the top of the list for important keywords gives you a huge advantage over the competition.
A quick example should help highlight the importance of SEO a little better. Imagine that you own a pet store in Dallas, Texas. Of course, there are plenty of other pet stores in Dallas, so you have a lot of competition in the market. When a pet owner needs to purchase something, there is a good chance they will head to their favorite search engine and type in the words ‘pet store Dallas’. The results that display will have a great influence over where they go to make their purchase. With good SEO on your website, you can increase your chances of getting toward the top of that list – and gaining business. However, if your competition has done a better job of SEO than you have, your site will sink toward the bottom of the rankings and your business will suffer.
It is helpful to think of SEO in the same terms as you would think about your location in the ‘real world’. A store on a main street with plenty of traffic has a better chance of attracting business than does one on a back road. In the same way, the businesses that come up on the top of the search results can be thought of as being on the ‘main street’. They are the most visible, and they will receive the most business. In order to get your business off the back road and out onto the main street, you need to work hard at your SEO efforts.
Now that you have a good idea of why SEO is so important, let’s look at a few of the basic elements that you need to understand. Below are five elements of SEO that are crucial toward the success or failure of your website.
1. Picking the Right Keywords to Target
SEO revolves around keywords. If you don’t use the right keywords in your content on the website, search engines might not be able to figure out what you have to offer. Doing thorough keyword research an important part of the SEO process because it gives you a roadmap with which you can plan your content. Going back to the example above, ‘pet store Dallas’ is just one possible keyword phrase that could be targeted. More specific keywords are often more productive, so things like ‘dog food Dallas’ or ‘cat toys Dallas’ might be even more useful as target for your site.
2. Don’t Overdo It
Once many website owners understand that they need to include the right keywords in their content to attract traffic, they go crazy and stuff in as many words as possible – even if it means their website doesn’t make very much sense. This is a bad strategy. Not only will your visitors get frustrated by the poor quality of the content on your website, but the search engines could actually punish you for ‘keyword stuffing’ and move you farther down the rankings. You should make sure the specific keywords appear in your content, but be sure to keep focused on the quality of the writing and the user experience for the traffic that does land on your pages.
3. It’s a Popularity Contest
Keywords aren’t the only element of SEO that is important to the ranking of your site. Another vital piece of the puzzle is the number of links that are pointing in toward your site. Inbound links are seen as a sign of popularity, and an indication that your site is of good quality. When you are able to get other good websites to add links to your pages from their site, it can go a long way for your SEO rankings. What is the best way to get links pointing toward your site? Quite simply – make a good site. People are inclined to link to other sites that have quality content and something of value to offer, so make the best site you can and let your links accumulate naturally.
4. Your Work is Never Done
Don’t make the mistake of thinking that once you work on the SEO of your site, your work is done and you can just sit back and relax. SEO is a field that is always changing and evolving, so you need to keep up with the times and constantly be improving your efforts to stay as close to the top of the rankings as possible. As soon as you start to take your ranking for granted and get lazy in terms of working on your site, one of your competitors is sure to come up from behind as pass you.
5. Focus on Your Target Market
Make sure that you don’t forget about your actual human visitors while you are spending so much time on your SEO. At the end of the day, you have to be able to impress the actual people that visit your site if you are going to help your business succeed. Large amounts of traffic will do you no good if all of that traffic just turns around and leaves because they don’t like your site or it doesn’t have what they are looking for. SEO is important, but always keep your potential customer at the top of the list.
SEO is an element of modern business that you can’t afford to ignore. The majority of web traffic is driven through search engines, and you want your place on those search engines to be as prominent as possible. If you need assistance with the SEO efforts on your site, be sure to contact the team at iZIMAX today.
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