Why is SEO important for my site?
This should be your number one question when hiring a website design and website developer. It’s one thing to get a well designed website, but it’s even more important that your future clients and customers can find you.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) background
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in search engines via the “natural” or un-paid (“organic” or “algorithmic”) search results on sites such as Google, Yahoo, Bing, and others. Other forms of search engine marketing (SEM) target paid listings like Google AdWords. In general, the higher on the page your website ranks and more frequently a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors you will receive from the search engines. SEO may target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, video search and industry-specific vertical search engines. This gives a website web presence and in turn, more visitors.
Have an Internet marketing strategy
As an Internet marketing strategy, SEO considers how search engines work and what people search for. Optimizing a website may involve editing its content and HTML and associated coding to both increase its relevance to specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines. Promoting a site to increase the number of backlinks, or inbound links, is another SEO tactic.
Why does everyone focus on SEO for Google?
Google holds over 60% of the total search market. Its algorithm is also unique, so ranking on Google carries its own unique considerations – make sure the agency or firm you hire knows what Google is looking for. Although there are over 200 criteria Google uses to rank sites, they can be categorized into two main sections: on-site and off-site factors:
- Google values sites that deliver quality content, relevance, easy navigation and load and an overall user-friendliness to the site’s visitors (on-site).
- A site’s popularity is heavily weighted when Google ranks sites (off-site).
Thus Google was originally designed to rank sites mostly based on the number of inbound links they were receiving from other sites. In other words, the more site “A” was used as a “reference” the higher it would rank. Anchored text links used to link to site “A” are also very important as well as the popularity and the relevance of the site that is referencing site “A”.
The acronym “SEO” can refer to “search engine optimizers,” a term adopted by an industry of consultants who carry out optimization projects on behalf of clients, and by employees who perform SEO services in-house. Search engine optimizers may offer SEO as a stand-alone service or as a part of a broader marketing campaign. Because effective SEO may require changes to the HTML source code of a site and site content, SEO tactics may be incorporated intowebsite development and design. The term “search engine friendly” may be used to describe website designs, menus, content management systems, images, videos, shopping carts, and other elements that have been optimized for the purpose of search engine exposure.
Can’t I just copy and paste a bunch of content all over my site then?
Another class of techniques, known as “black hat SEO” or spamdexing, uses methods such as link farms, keyword stuffing and article spinning that degrade both the relevance of search results and the user-experience of search engines. Search engines look for sites that employ these techniques in order to remove them from their indices.
Think this is still too confusing?
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