What do you really know about SEO? - ISSUE 19 - 1/23/12

Whether you are an "expert" in Search Engine Optimization or an amateur, this blog is for you.  As always, I'm trying to grow my knowledge of being a professional marketer and I'm still amazed at all the new things I learn that I thought I knew everything about.  I thought I knew what the most important aspects to SEO were and I thought I was doing everything right.  But, even after all that, I wasn't seeing the results in website traffic that I knew I should be.  So, just as you may have guessed, I sought out the information that would allow me to produce the results I should have been producing.

Now that you have your website up and running, how do you maintain and grow your excellent store front?  What on Earth are people looking for that will lead them to find you?!  You hear people saying all the time that it's all about "getting ranked high in the search engines."  What does that mean?  It's simple.  Everyday people all over the world are looking up information on the Internet.  Google uses their very sophisticated algorithmic formulas to determine which websites are the most relevant to the questions people are posing within the search box.

Obviously, your next question will be, "how do I do that?!"  This time, my answer will be... "It's not so simple."  You will have to work very hard and consistently to grow your business and your following online.  You must never stop because within a very short period of time of doing so, you will be obsolete in the world of the search engines. Believe it or not, a very large factor of your relevance is how fresh your content is.  By keeping your information current and up-to-date, you will always be at the forefront of your competition.

Put yourself in the shoes of a visitor to your website.  Let's say you are someone who has never seen your website before and let's say for example, it looks like the website hasn't been updated since 1998.  What is the first thing you are going to do?  That's right!  You're going to push the BACK button and move onto the next because you believe there's no way the information is going to be relevant to you.  In case you didn't know, the BACK button is the third most used feature on an Internet browser.  You want your visitors using this button only when necessary.

Now that you're updating your website on a regular basis, the next aspect to SEO that's most important for you to focus on is who trusts you and perceives you as an authoritative figure.  In other words, the more people that link to you and your website, the more relevant you will be to the search engines.  Link-building is not an easy task and will take a lot of work on your part, but it will pay off ten-fold in the long run.

As a whole, there are only a small percentage of people out there to assist you with link-building but they have the most impact on your success.  People link to other websites for six primary reasons: anger, pride, excitement, surprise, envy, and sharing.  It's your job to determine what message you want the public to see, but you always need to be thinking about this when you are maximizing your website.  Regardless of the quality of your content, no one is going to share it unless they have a reason to and/or it benefits them.

Following is a list of on-page correlations based off importance:

Highest - Lowest

1. Website URL
2. Title
3. Body
4. Alt Text
5. HTML
6. Bold
7. Meta Description
8. Emphasize
9. Meta Keywords
10. Italics
11. H1, H2, H3
12. Out Anchors

Now that you have a little more information about SEO, and you know what is most important to focus on, you should start to see results within a short period of time, but remember, you must always be updating to stay competitive.