What is Search Engine Optimization?
Did you know that more than 80 percent of Internet users find the sites
they're looking for by using a search engine? Every single day, more than 57
percent of web users search the Internet, making website searching the
second most popular Internet activity after email (according to Statistical
Research, Inc.). The majority of Internet users use search engines and web
directories as their primary method to find information or resources
on-line.
Search engine listings outscore banner and button ads by more than two to
one on measures including awareness, likelihood to click-on, and overall
opinion, in a recent study by NPD Group. The survey also found that
consumers are five times more likely to purchase your products after seeing
search listings versus banners.
Search engines drive extremely targeted traffic. The visitor who finds
your site through a search engine is already actively looking for exactly
what you provide. You can't find a more targeted form of marketing than
that.
However, with approximately 4 billion web pages publicly available on the
World Wide Web, and growing competition in every sector of the provision of
data and services, high search engine rankings are no accident. They have to
be thoughtfully planned and executed like the other tactics in your
marketing strategy.
In order for the Internet surfers to find your web site, it has to be
optimized correctly for the search engine spiders to recognize it. Once your
site is optimized, your company's web presence on Internet search engines
will increase significantly.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) uses knowledge and observation of
exactly 'how' search engines and web directories decide which web sites to
return as results for queries, and applies this to attain significantly
higher placement for particular web pages and sites. SEO is the process of
assisting the search engines and directories to accurately evaluate which
search queries your web content can answer effectively, and additionally
seeks to provide a certain level of preference for ranking your sites within
the search results for those queries.
Most people new to Internet marketing are under the false assumption that
once they submit their site to a list of search engines, they will get high
rankings. In reality, search engine optimization goes far beyond that. Below
are just a few tips on basic search engine optimization.
Search engines rank sites by relevancy and will consider a variety of
factors when ranking a web site, including:
Meta tags: In order for
Meta tags to be effective, they need to
correspond to the web page they are associated with. To do so, your Meta
tags must be related to the content on the page and not over exaggerating
what the site is about.
Web site content: Search engines also rank web sites based on how
much content they have and how relevant they are to the search term query.
Site design: Your site should be easy to navigate for users and
search engine spiders alike. You can do this by adding a static navigation
links on each page.
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