What Is SEO?

SEO is an acronym for “Search Engine Optimization.” SEO is the process of constructing your onsite and offsite marketing presence in such a way that the search engines, social media platforms, mobile devices, and email platforms all work together to bring your product or service to the forefront of those individuals and businesses who are in the market for what you have to offer.

Putting it another way – say you are selling new tires and you want a way to use the internet to find all the people who are driving around town with bald tires. As a result, you can show them your great sale prices for new tires. That is what good SEO does.

Google is a very intense competition. Those who learn the rules of the competition the best, win. Poor website construction, with poor content and poor choices of keywords can result in a difficult ride as to where you appear in the Google listings. It is best to have a competent SEO company plan and construct your website and optimize it for Google, along with all of the other tactics that will create the desired result. Find a group that has a successful track record, and they will be able to do the same for you.

While it is possible to “do it yourself” it will probably not be very successful, as there are so many factors that need to be implemented, and they are best left up to the experts who will be able to show you a track record of their successes with other clients. They do the work that they do the best, so you can continue to do what you do best, which is operating your business.

A blog is a great idea because it can attain its own rank in the search engines too. The difference between a blog and a website from a functional viewpoint is that a blog allows an interaction between you, as the business owner, and the public and your website is more static.

Your blog can get pretty lively from the standpoint of people posting questions and you answering them, and from other people who will comment along the way too. Many more people hang back and observe the blog, to just see what is going on. A blog can give your business an additional presence, and if it ranks well, you can link back to your website which will help your website to rank higher.

On page optimization is the process of arranging your website in the way that Google and the other search engines like to see it. Content is king, as they say in web circles, and rightly so because that is what the person who is searching for the subject matter wants. Finding the right keywords, and keyword phrases, handling the meta tags properly, such as keyword listings, and a solid description of your site means a lot to the person searching, as they will see your description when your listing comes up. Optimizing your website for mobile devices is a must as well, because nearly two-thirds of the people who are searching online are using their mobile device.

The better your webpage describes the topic that the individual is looking for, the better your chances are of ranking on page one. If a person is looking for “Apple Cider Vinegar Cures,” you had better offer a very vivid and focused explanation on your page of exactly how apple cider vinegar cures the ailments of people.

Off page optimization includes all those external practices that will serve to move your website up in the rankings. A key area is backlinks to your site. A backlink is a link from another website, blog, article, press release or another publication back to the URL of your website. It should not be any old website that is linking back to you, but one of authority, which means one that is ranked higher than you are in the search engines.

Webmasters usually try and get as many backlinks as they can from other websites with a page ranking in the top 10 of Google. This tells Google that your site is important and it will help your site rank because of that influence.

Social media plays a big part in offsite optimization with a Facebook page, a Twitter account, Instagram, Tumblr and Pinterest accounts can all be used to publicize your brand by linking back to your website.

White Hat SEO is playing by the rules. All of the above-board strategies fall into the categories of being naturally achieved by the sheer interest that the public has in your webpage. The more publicity that can be created through proper on and off page optimization the better the search engines like it. Publicity of this kind is all fair and acceptable in the eyes of Google and the other search engines. In other words – no cheating allowed.

Black Hat SEO is a term that is used when webmasters bend the rules or cheat. For example there are entities who will sell you 5,000 backlinks for $100. Even though that would probably not work very well, because Google likes to see links happen more gradually, that would be an example of an attempt at Black Hat SEO.

Another example of a black hat technique would be the publishing of a blog with text that may have nothing to do with the context of a website, with the exception of stuffing the blog with keywords, just to get the site ranked. Using fake comments on a blog or fake likes on a Facebook page just to get them ranked to get authority for your website is another example. Practices like these can work on a temporary basis, but they can also get you banned from the search engines.

Just don’t do these types of things, and don’t allow it if you hire somebody and they use these tactics either.

Yes, it is the goal to get to the first page of Google and stay there. People make many of their buying decisions from the searches they make on the internet. If you don’t rank within the first five spots on the first page of Google, you are probably not going to get noticed or found.

This is why the best thing anyone can do if they need to use Google as a tool for marketing, is to hire a well qualified SEO organization to engineer the process for you. A qualified SEO company should be able to demonstrate from their client list how they are able to get the results that you want in getting your website ranked.

A back link is a link from another website, blog, press release, social media page, or another page or publication that links back to your website. The other site should be what is called an “authority site” meaning that it is ranked higher than your site, such as having a page rank of 5 or lower. Page rank is like a countdown, the lower the number, the higher you rank. This tells Google that your page must be pretty important to receive such a link, and it will help you with your Google rank. It is still fair to say that, all things being equal, the website that has the most backlinks will outrank a website with fewer backlinks. It is true that each situation will differ, but over a large amount of websites, that will generally hold true.

“Organic” results means that your ranking process looks to Google like your page ranking is occurring normally. For example, your content is very descriptive and it has the right number of keywords that correspond to what is being searched for, the backlinks are coming in and being added gradually as they should and you are gradually getting more referrals from social media pages, blogs, press releases, and other sources.

Google has algorithms that are able to judge how a normal website picks up visitors on a scale of steady momentum, and if a site suddenly has thousands of hits, that would not be in a normal, or “organic” pattern. If Google thinks that you are not growing your site in an “organic” manner, they might penalize you for abnormal, or growing your site in a way that is not “organic.”

A landing page is any page where a visitor lands after being sent there from another external source. For example, you may be presenting an offer for a great winter glove sale, and you are going to offer winter gloves at 50% off of regular prices. You would run an ad with a brief description of the offer, and then have a link to the landing page where the details are given, and the reader will have the chance to purchase the gloves or get more information. He will be urged to make a decision towards what you would like him to do, and you will have a buy button for him to make the purchase. A landing page is unique in that its sole purpose is to get an individual to take action.

A rich snippet is the small line of text that goes under the live Google description of your website. Google decided to add them in 2009 to help users discover more information on a variety of subjects including people, events, recipes, and reviews. The objective was to give people more information before they committed to clicking through to your website.

Rich snippets should be included by your webmaster in order to draw the eye of the viewer to your listing. It helps, and that is what counts, and any little thing can make the difference as to whether a viewer clicks through to your website.

SEO is an ongoing process and your tactics and strategies should be in constant review. For example statistics now show that roughly 60 to 70 percent of people who are searching on the internet are doing so through their mobile devices. So if you are not optimizing your websites to be picked up on mobile devices, you are missing out on a ton of traffic.

You and your webmaster should always be aware of the statistics that are created by the traffic to your websites. Google analytics is a wonderful tool that will help you to do that. Your webmaster will keep all of those kinds of data, and they will tell you how effective you are, and give you ideas as to where you can tweak and adjust your tactics and strategies.