The main focus these days isn’t on your website, but the content of your website. That’s where SEO or search engine optimization comes into play. The concept of SEO is to use certain keywords and phrases within your content to boost your visibility online by increasing your ranking on search engines. While there are companies out there that use complex search engine boosting techniques to get maximum results across all forms of online marketing, including social networks, there are some basic things you do right now to incorporate SEO into your online content.
Know Where You Stand
It’s hard to fix a problem when you don’t know how bad it is. To do this, all you have to do is search for your company or business online. The first step is to just get an idea of where you are landing when somebody searches for you. Once you determine where you stand, you can get into tracking some more details such as how many visitors you have to your website, how long they stay on a particular webpage and how many actually purchase something. There are plenty of free tracking tools you can add to your website to accomplish this task.
Use Keywords and Phrases Effectively
It’s no longer location, location, location. It’s keywords, keywords, keywords. You need to be aware of what you are saying and how you are saying it. This includes every aspect of your website, even photo or image captions and the URL of your website. Think about what words or phrases someone would type into their search engine if they were looking for your website online. It’s likely something related to what you sell or what services you offer. Words like bargain, free, convenient and discount tend to be popular keywords. It’s not just about using a bunch of keywords and phrases though. You need to make the content flow naturally. “Keyword stuffing” can get your site labeled as spam, so don’t get carried away with the keywords.
Use Keywords for Your Images and Photos
Throwing images onto your website is great, but you want to make you include captions. This is a great way to subtly throw in some keywords that will take someone who finds your image online directly to your website. On a side note, you want to include links within your text as well and a site map that lists all your major pages. The more convenient it is to navigate through your website, the better. As for the images and photos, try to keep them all relevant to your website. If you’re selling flowers, a picture of a woman in a bikini standing next to a car isn’t likely to attract someone interested in buying flowers. Descriptions and captions should be short. Attention spans are incredibly short online.
This is just the beginning when it comes to SEO. Once you get the content part down, the final step is to bring it all together. This means linking your website to your blog and any social networks you may using. The more connected your content is, the better your results are likely to be. Even in today’s high-tech world, it all comes down to content. Never under estimate the power of the written word, just make sure you throw in some keywords here and there.
