If you ask any company if they have an on-line presence today - the chances are they'll say yes. But what they consider as an on-line presence is the fact that their company has a website.
Now, ask those same people if they have "optimized" their sites for higher rankings on the major search engines and more than likely all you'll get from them is a blank stare. That is because most companies believe that if they have a website...that is all you need and people will be knocking down their doors for their products or services.
Do you remember the saying "If you build it - they will come"? Well, I think that most people feel that way about their website. Because they don't understand what search engine optimization is.
So, What is Search Engine Optimization?
Search engine optimization is the process of improving the volume of qualified visitors to your web site by increasing your companies natural search engine ranking on the major search engines like Google and Yahoo, to name the two largest.
Why Optimize?
The reason to optimize is clear! It is estimated that 80% of consumers use search engines to find the products or services that they are looking to buy. And if you are are not on the first pages of the major search engines, then it's a good chance that your competition will be and those consumers will be buying from him and not you. Is that a practice that you can afford?
How Do You Optimize Your Website?
There are 5 basic steps in optimizing your website for the search engines. Four are on-site and one is not.
1. Your website must be well written with relevant content to your product or service that you are selling. This simply means that you can't fill the page with garbage that doesn't make any kind of sense or has no relation to your product or service and should be original content.
2. You have pertinent "keywords" (a keyword is a word or phrase that could describe your product or service) relating to your product or services throughout your site. This can get tricky because you want to place as many keywords as possible, but including too many will not only be regarded as trying to "spam" the system and could get your site penalized, but your content probably would not read very well either and that is not good for business.
3. Your page titles need to include your specific keywords. Take the time to consider the page names (titles). If you have a page that you're selling fairy tale stories for young girls. Title your page "fairytale storiesforyounggirls. This is perfectly acceptable and will score you points in ranking for the search engines.
4. Your website is easy to navigate. Make sure your links are working, you have a navigation bar and you include a "sitemap" with your website.
And the fifth reason that is off page
5. You need to obtain relevant links back to your website. The keyword here is "relevant". You want to have other websites that complement your site, have similar products or services or have some relationship to your product or service, that will place a link on their site back to yours and you can return the favor by linking their site from yours. Search engines actually recommend that you engage in a link campaign for this very thing. But BEWARE - do not get involved with "link farms". These are sites that do nothing except sell links back to your site with no real relevance. Search engines look for these situations and if caught again your site could be penalized.
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