subject: The Importance of Search Engine Optimization [print this page] Whether you're looking to start an internet marketing campaign or have one running already, SEO, or search engine optimization, is one area you cannot overlook. Even though SEO has become a highly known buzz word in online marketing, many online marketers do not know enough about it to add it to their own online marketing strategy. Even an internet marketer who has knowledge in SEO may find difficulty in achieving their results.
As with offline marketing for a business, advertising is a very important part of any online marketing strategy. You need to advertise to reach new customers and market your products or services. Whether you run your business online or not you probably already realize how important it is to advertise but if you are running your business online you should understand there is a great deal of free advertising available in the form of optimal search engine rankings.
Search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing utilize complex algorithms in order to determine the importance of a webpage and it's relevancy for specific terms. Therefore taking the time and effort to optimize your website for relevant search terms may result in you being rewarded with high search engine rankings for these terms. This is important because most Internet users rely heavily on these rankings. It is very common for a search engine user to only click on the first result that comes up on the term they are searching for. So if your site has a high enough rank and appears in the first position of a search result, it will likely see an increase in search traffic. However, if your website doesn't make it to the first page or even the second page, it is unlikely you will receive a great deal of website traffic from visitors who use search engines.
Understanding the importance of ranking is only the first step, you will also need to understand how to achieve this higher search engine ranking. The easiest way to optimize your website is to hire a SEO specialist from a Vancouver online marketing agency to do the work for you. The world of SEO is complex and continually evolving making it difficult for most business owners who do not specialize in SEO to keep up with the changes in the industry. Therefore, business owners who attempt to optimize their website by themselves may have difficulty keeping up with competitors who hire an internet marketing agency to optimize their website.
All in all, the algorithms search engines use to determine a website's rank are quite complex. The equation usually factors in page titles, content, meta tags, keyword density, overall site traffic and inbound links.
Keyword density refers to the number of times a particular keyword is used in the content of your website. The theory behind this concept is that website which use a keyword often are likely extremely relevant to that keyword, however, overuse of that keyword may result in penalties to the website if the search engine deemed the keywords are not being used appropriately.
META tags are a part of the HTML code and is used by the search engines to help determine what the content is about. Placing keywords in these tags can be beneficial in some search engines. To avoid penalty from the search engines, do not place extraneous or unrelated keywords in the META tags.
Inbound links are a great way to give your website importance with search engines. These links are essentially another website linking to a page on your site. In evaluating the worth of these inbound links, some search engines consider the rank of the website providing the link to your website.This means you should ensure the website providing inbound links to your website are high ranking websites to receive the most benefit from these links.
Finally, the content on your website can do a great deal to bolster your search engine rankings. Most internet marketing agencies retain a staff of writers who are skilled at providing quality content which is also optimized for relevant keywords. If you hire an online marketing agency and they do not provide a writing service, you should consider hiring your own professional writer. This will help to ensure the copy on your website is not only valuable to your visitors but also considered valuable to search engines.
