Internet Marketing Solution

Search engine optimization can be defined as a service or an effort by the professional to optimize the web presence of the website in the search engines. In other words, what the optimizer is trying to do is enhance the web presence of the website so that it can get ranked in page 1 of major search engines such as Google and Yahoo. Search engine optimization is referred to by many other names such as SEO, search engine marketing (though strictly speaking there is a difference between search engine optimization and marketing), web marketing and others. Let us now see what the advantages of search engine optimization are and how an optimizer would go about doing his/her job.

Why SEO is essential?

There was a time when the Internet was just beginning to spread and people and companies were just starting to have their own websites. But now every company and even thousands of individuals too have websites. Just search using a ‘keyword’ or a ‘key phrase’ in a search engine and you are likely to come across thousands of websites. But the problem is, each search query page in a search engine just has 10 pages and a vast majority of people on the Internet never go beyond page 2 or 3 when they are trying to find a website. And so, a website that is say ranked in page 10 or 12 of the search engine will never get the visibility it needs to do enough business. This is why most online businesses end up not having enough customers.

But with search engine optimization, you can do what is needed to push up the rankings of the website and in time, the website gets prominently displayed in the search query page for popular keywords. Even if not on the first page, the website has to be essentially be within the first 3 pages to get the visitors it needs. And if you do not get the ranked, your competitors will get all the business while your website will be lost in the maze of the Internet.

Difference between search engine optimization and search engine marketing

Actually SEO is a small part of SEM or search engine marketing. SEM is a bigger subject and it encompasses various other activities to truly enhance the web visibility of a website. These activities include PPC (pay per click) campaigns, affiliate programs, banner advertisements and others. But among everything you can do online, search engine optimization is probably the most cost effective.

How to optimize a website

There are many things a web optimizer would do to rank your website in the search engines. They are…

• Before everything the professional would analyze your website to find out where it stands at this time. Whether the website has any ranks or not and what is the traffic volume. The person would also look at the code of the pages and ensure that there is nothing that is not search engine friendly. Any broken link in the pages also needs to be found out.
• Keyword research is essential to find out the most popular relevant keywords that visitors to such websites might be using.
• Exchanging links with other websites (both related and non-related) is a crucial thing. So the optimizer will look for websites that have a PR of 4 at least (PR or Page Rank is Google’s measurement of the importance of a web page) and link to them before asking for a link back. This is almost a constant process because the more the number of incoming links, the better it is for the website. Search engines take an incoming link as a vote and if a website has a high number of incoming links, the search engines believe that it is a good website and thus should be ranked higher.
• Content is rich on the Internet and thus, websites that have a lot of content tend to rank better. So if possible the website may want to publish some content. But sometime this is not possible on the main pages. In this case there can be a special ‘Articles’ page on the website that can be linked from the Home page. Constantly adding articles is sure to help. And of course, the more information you offer to the people, the better it is for the website.
• Submitting to directories is also helpful. Articles may be submitted to various directories with a link back from the ‘bio’ section. This also ensures a link back because of the presence of the link in the directory page.
• Social media advertising have emerged recently – but this is also very useful.
• •    Many search engines read meta tags such as the Title, Description, Keywords and Alt. So the optimizer has to work on these tags too and insert keywords to make sentences in a meaningful manner.