The SEO edge
Search engine optimization (SEO) should be considered a critical element of any Web marketing strategy. This is important because there is so much which can be gained from SEO in terms of Web marketing and advertising. Failure to optimize your website for search engines can result in a considerable loss in terms of free advertising which is essentially gained from ranking well with search engines. This article will provide insight into what SEO is and will explain why Web marketing requires some SEO, at least in the most basic form.
A basic SEO strategy is one with which a given website is designed to obtain favorable search engine rankings on the SERPs (search engine result pages) of popular search engines. This can be achieved in a variety of different ways since effective SEO strategies combine a variety of different techniques to complete a well orchestrated SEO campaign which may also help to lay the groundwork for future effective campaigns.
Search engine rewards
There are several elements to consider when attempting to optimize your website for search engines, including keyword density, prominence, META tags, titles and inbound links. Keyword density is one of the most common SEO strategies and essentially involves using relevant keywords often in the content of a website to demonstrate the relevance of the particular keywords to the website. This is important because search engines are likely to reward websites containing optimal keyword densities with favorable search engine rankings in an effort to provide Web users with the most relevant websites for particular search terms.
The prominence, which determines how close the keywords are placed to the beginning of the website should also be considered when developing your SEO strategy. Unfortunately the common mistake some website owners make when employing this strategy is to believe that the first opportunity to incorporate keywords is in the first line of visible text on the webpage. This is not true because search engines crawl the code of a website as opposed to the visible content on the website.
Therefore a website owner will have multiple opportunities to incorporate relevant keywords long before the actual visible content on the website. This might include the code for the title as well as the META tags. Business owners who realize the potential for incorporating keyword into the code gain an advantage over competitors who only incorporate keywords into the content on their website.
High ranking links
Another area of concern which is very important for those who are interested in SEO is inbound links. Inbound links are essentially links which reside on other websites and generate direct traffic to your website. These links are considered important because many search engines place a value on inbound links because they represent the degree to which one website recommends another website. However, when obtaining inbound links it is important to do so from other websites which rank well with search engines because many search engines consider the rank of the original website when determining the value of the inbound link on a website.
Now that we have looked at and talked about some of the main concepts of SEO, we will illustrate why it is important to optimize your website in the first place. SEO is so important because most Web users place a high value on the results of search engines and are thus are likely to visit only those high ranking websites when they search for a particular keyword.
Trust equals traffic
Web users trust search engines to serve the most relevant content first and are therefore not likely to visit websites which do not fall on the first or second page of search results. The significant of this is that websites which rank well essentially are receiving a great deal of free advertising from search engines that place their website in a key position. Website owners who do not invest time or money to make sure their sites are properly optimized miss out on a great deal of potential web traffic which deprive them of all the potential sales that may result.
