What is SEO? Search engine optimization is the process of getting your website ranked on the front page of major search engines. The process takes making a website that is easy to maneuver with relevant content so that it is easily recognized by search engines. As you guessed there is a lot more to it than that but in general that is what it takes to get your website on the front page of Google, Yahoo or Bing.
You may ask yourself why it is in your best interest to rank on the front page. Why is this important? How often are you searching Google and find yourself looking at the results on page five? Never! That is because the most relevant information to your search has come up on the front page. Within the top ten results you have an answer to what your search was. It is proven over and over again that ninety-five percent of all traffic to a website comes from front page search results. People are impatient. They want to get the information they need without searching any further than they have to in order to get it.
What does this mean to you, a business owner with an ineffective online presence? You must work toward a long term SEO solution. Many times this involves working with a search engine placement team of experts to analyze, fix and maintain your website and develop an online marketing plan. The forefront of the plan involves making sure your site is functioning optimally. This means looking into the content, the bac-kend, the website design and the overall ease of maneuvering through the site. Look at it from a customer’s point of view not as a business owner. Sometimes too much information can be as off putting as too little.
It is helpful to go into any new business venture with eyes wide open. The same is true when hiring a search engine optimization team of experts for your online marketing presence. There are some key terms that get thrown around a lot that can be confusing to someone just entering the search engine race. Below you will find terms and definitions to help you come out on top when finding a search engine placement team to work with for your SEO needs.
• SEM – This acronym stands for search engine management. This entails the process of designing and marketing your website for the best online presence possible. The goal is to position your
website in both search advertising and paid advertising. Paid advertising is a whole other beast we can talk about at another time.
• SEO – This is the acronym that represents search engine optimization. This is what we talked about earlier, making the sites content and design relevant for search engines to index and appeal to users.
• PPC – This acronym is all about paid advertising and stands for pay-per-click. This is, in very general terms, when someone places an ad and pays each time someone clicks on the ads.
• Natural Rankings – A term that is used for any listing that your site comes by in the free or unpaid sections of the web.
The following terms are used for the design element of the site that really is not relevant to the visual aspect of the site however is needed for indexing purposes.
• Meta Tags: This is the information that is seated in the back-end of the website. The Meta tags are not really relevant to the person searching in any aspect other than they help with the indexing of your site within search engines. Many people will never even have knowledge that such tags and back end info exists.
• Title Tags: This is a Meta tag that briefly describes what the page is all about in short. This is a perfect spot to use the keywords you are aiming your search engine results towards.
• Description: This is a description found on each page that describes the content in detail.
• Keywords: These are the exact terms in word or phrase form. These keywords will be entered in the text as well as the back end of the site in an effort to improve your search engine rankings.