Why You Should Incorporate SEO Into Your Website - ISSUE 15 - 1/12/12

Whether you are an online marketer or just a business owner who wants to drive business to her website, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is imperative. People are utilizing Search Engines more than ever before and if you aren't maximizing this, you could be missing out on thousands of dollars of business. In fact, SEO is the most effective online marketing tactic for generating conversions.

In case you are wondering, the definition of SEO by Lee Odden of TopRank Online Marketing states that it is "a set of methodologies that make it easier for search engines to find, index, categorize and rank web content.

Most people are familiar with search engines such as Google or Bing, but do you know how the search engines work? To sum it up, when you visit Google, for example, you are actually seeing a copy of the web, and not the actual web. Google downloads the entire Internet on a regular basis and indexes the information onto their servers all over the world. After they download the information, they use their algorithms to sort the information and place the most relevant information to your search query at the top of the list. If your website can't be seen by Google or your information is not relevant to what people are searching for, then very few people, if any, will be able to find your company's website.

To ensure you are making your website search engine friendly, the following is a basic SEO Checklist:

• Content is reachable by search engines
• Content is added often/periodically
• Content is organized logically - themes/categories
• Keywords exist in content and internal text links
• Quantity of quality sites linking in
• Relevant and Authoritative
• Get links coming in to specific products and services
• Monitor, adjust

After you have gone through the SEO checklist, you must also spend a considerable amount of time optimizing your website by writing valuable and relevant content, brainstorming keywords for the three parts of the sales cycle (Research, Consider, Buy), and then by doing your own research to leverage and maximize your keywords so that you can be placed on the top of the search engine results.
It's very important that when brainstorming for keywords that you get into the minds of your customers rather than guessing. Here are a few examples of how you might do that:

• Brainstorm based on solutions and customer needs
• Interview or survey customers
• Review current web analytics
• Poll sales and customer service staff
• Review competitor content

There are multiple different facets to optimizing your website for the search engines and the process is painstaking and never-ending. If you haven't already, it's highly recommended to hire a professional so that you can focus on other areas of your business, unless, of course, you are a professional web designer and online marketer and enjoy doing it. Visit our website to learn more about how we will be able to assist you with accomplishing your goals and to ensure your success. www.suitedmarketing.com
Information is constantly changing and if you don't change with it, you will find yourself out of business before you have time to blink.

If you're the do-it-yourselfer and would like to learn more about SEO, I highly recommend for you to watch the following video by one of the experts in the field.


SEO Crash Course to Get Found (GF102)