Literally – Search Engine Optimization; i.e. Making your website easy
for the search engines to find, index and rank highly, which then
makes it easier for your target internet surfer to find you.
SEO is sometimes made out to be the impenetrable domain of a fewexperts who hold all the keys to elusive search engine rankings.
Certainly there are experts who spend their time keeping up with the
ever-changing algorithms of Google and other engines, and constantly
tweaking their sites accordingly. But for the average website owner,
it’s not really necessary to go into the minute details in order to
perform well, and it’s not generally practical for many small businesses
to hire such companies because they don’t come cheap. For the small
business that still wants to rank highly without hiring a specialist,
there are some general good practices that you can easily implement
which will serve you well. That’s what this E-book is designed to
explain.
As you delve into the world of SEO, keep in mind a few things:
1) SEO is not just about the volume of traffic you get to your site, but
you should think of it in terms of trying to attract quality traffic.
Quality traffic means people who are actually looking for what your
site has to offer and are therefore more likely to spend some time at
your site, revisit it, perhaps make a purchase, enter their email
address etc. This is more valuable than having millions of people come
to your site but leave within seconds because it’s not what they are
looking for. In this Web 2.0 world, niche content and traffic is valid and
profitable. Don’t try and please everybody, but keep in mind who your
target audience is, and work on appealing to them.
2) Another thing to consider is that SEO is just one of the several ways
(both on-and offline) in which you can get traffic to your site. While it
may be the most discussed method, you should always keep in
perspective your overall goals for your site and business. This means
that you should never sacrifice good content or a good user experience
for the sake of SEO. The overall idea that I try and convey to clients,
and my blog readers is that branding yourself or your company means
attracting a fanbase or client base and then developing a relationship
with these people. Some people get bogged down in the details of SEO
and think they must implement every little trick and technique even if
it doesn’t necessarily make sense for their business. Note that most
practices discussed here are valuable for several reasons, not solely
for the search engines. The goal is to provide value and create the
most interesting and relevant site that you can.
3) Always keep in mind that while you want to be friendly with the
search engines, your best friend should be your fan, customer or
potential customer since those are the ones you hope to ultimately win
over for the long term. The search engines help you find these people,
but once they have assisted in that goal, it’s your responsibility to
build a relationship with those people so that they keep coming back
to your site
So the bottom line is to always exercise common sense and keep the
bigger picture in mind. Some internet marketers use what are called
“black hat” techniques which involve some dubious (to put it nicely)
and ‘spammy’ practices to trick search engines and surfers. You won’t
find those discussed here. I’m assuming you have a brand or a site
that you want to develop and maintain over the long-term, and with
this in mind, any shady practices that may seem to have a quick
payoff will damage you in the end.
At the end of the day there is no real substitute for great, relevant and
regularly updated content!
While there are several available search engines, I’ll be referring
mostly to Google throughout this report. It’s still the most important
search engine (and my personal fave ☺) and will most likely drive a
significant chunk of your traffic. Although algorithms vary from one
engine to the next, the methods I discuss will put you in good standing
with all of them – the tips discussed here are the fundamentals.
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