You've probably heard this one before, but as long as search engines are the main jump off point to access the right kind of information on the web, SEO will remain a necessary tool to use for internet marketing. It doesnt matter what product or service you sell online. SEO can help you get the exposure you need.
How SEO works for internet marketing
Most internet marketers have their own websites from which to conduct business transactions and communicate with their clients. Mailing lists, links and article-writing are a few of the proactive ways to promote products and services. These methods actively seek and push messages and ads to an audience.
On the other hand, SEO is the more passive type of promotion. SEO lures people in, without actually trying too hard. It's not a sneaky way of attracting traffic. On the contrary, it is a valid internet marketing tool and is commonly used by astute internet marketers who know how to harness its potential.
Of the millions of people who access the internet for information and business daily, a huge percentage of them actually do not have a particular site in mind. Whether they are looking for pictures, books, clothes or even information about the Dalai Lama, they are more likely to use a search engine to hunt for the kind of information they can actually use.
Once your site is optimized, it is more likely to appear on a search engine list and be noticed by surfers. A lot of sites are 'discovered' this way. Search engines like Google, Yahoo! and Ask.com are proof of this. Type a keyword on any of these sites and try to check out the sites that are first on the list. You'll find that these are the most optimized, containing the most keywords that match your search.
Here's how to begin:
Keep your competition close
Treating your competition like the plague will not help your business. Instead, try to learn what you can about them. Go to a search engine and type a keyword relevant to your business. Visit the top sites and look around, see how they look, what information are available and take note of their links.
You will notice that while the top site may be attractive, the reason that it is high on the search results is because of its content, not its colors, animations or pictures. If you read through its articles and you'll find that each one is related to the main content or business of the site, whether it's pet care or personal coaching.
This is a clever way of keeping an audience interested enough to browse, click and read. Most of the time if they like what they find, they will buy. It's that simple.
Apply what you've learned
The best way to optimize your website for search engines is at the beginning. This way you won't have to go through the hassles of revamping your site. You could still redesign it if it is a pre-existing site. Either way, you have no excuse not to use SEO.
You could also opt to hire a firm to the work for you, but this would mean spending money which you otherwise could save if you had reasonable writing skills.
Next, be visible by providing interesting and relevant articles, tips and information that have a good keyword density. If your site has to be search engine optimized, then it must be content-rich. Use only articles and links that can improve your site's visibility. No amount of videos and photos can do this at least, not yet.
Submit your site to search engine indexes and directories. You have to join the big leagues if you want to stand out. At first it can be quite overwhelming, but if you use SEO smartly, you have nothing to fear.
Keeping it new
SEO is really about URL ranking and this is notoriously fickle, changing on a weekly basis, depending on the new crop of better optimized sites that appear. You can't fight this; the best thing you can do is produce new content on a regular basis to keep up with the competition.
A few words of caution
Optimize, but dont bore. It's always tempting to pelt your articles with keywords in order to obtain a high density level, but if the result is a boring, senseless piece of writing, then you're better off leaving the article for someone else to handle. Creativity plays a huge part in your site content if you want SEO to work to your advantage.
