Being on top in search results can make a huge difference in visibility and sales — but many entrepreneurs find the concept of “search engine optimization” completely mystifying and intimidating. The good news is that if you master a few basic concepts, you can begin to improve your profile in search today.
How Your Search Ranking is Determined
Google search rankings are determined by an algorithm that includes a number of factors. Google “search spiders” are continually trawling the web, looking for new or updated pages. They “read” all of the HTML or text on the page and then index it for later retrieval when a person queries Google with a specific search.
Each website is given a “Page rank” by Google. Named for Google founder Larry Page, the “Page rank” is a numerical indicator of the website’s relative authority. Factors that influence a websites “Page rank” include: the number and authority of other sites linking to it, the domain’s top level domain (i.e., .gov and .edu are ranked higher than .com).
Changes at Google
The Google search algorithm is secret and has undergone some major changes in recent years. Two updates, code-named “Panda” and “Penguin” were meant to fine-tune the algorithm to reject low-quality “content farm” materials. Content farms are usually sites that churn out low-quality content stuffed with phrases and terms people are searching for. The bottom line? Google wants to reward good, authoritative content and penalize lower quality stuff.
Why Should Search Engine Optimization Matter to Your Business?
“SEO is a collection of tactics that help a website rank in the first positions of Google for search terms that describe their business. For example, an Italian restaurant in Seattle will really benefit from being #1 on Google for search terms like “Seattle Italian restaurant” or “Italian restaurant in Seattle,” explains Zeke Camusio of The Outsourcing Company.
Search Engine Optimization Demystified
Two things matter when you are trying to optimize your webpages to arrive higher in the search rankings: on-page and off-page SEO.
On-page SEO: these are the elements in the optimization game that you have the most control over:
- Keywords — are you using valuable keywords and writing good quality content that is relevant to a specific topic?
- Are your pages structured well and easy for both readers and search spiders to parse?
Off-page SEO: Many experts believe this to be the trickier and more valuable angle on SEO success. Off-page SEO is all about how many high-quality links you have back to your content. How many other sites and users trust you to be an authority? True link-building is a slow and arduous process, and doesn’t happen overnight.
Improve Your Rankings
The first rule of SEO success isn’t the easiest or quickest, but it is the most effective: strive to write high quality content in a well-defined niche.
The second rule of SEO is to make sure you are using good keywords. How do you decide what a good keyword is. Well, you start with gut instincts, but you research your instincts. A great tool to start with is Google Trends.
Other Tips
Try using Google+. Some people think it may play a positive role in improving your search results.
Finally, if your business is bricks and mortar, make sure that all of your listing details are filled out completely. “We are currently seeing an explosion in both the reach and importance of local search, or search queries that have the intent of returning localized content,” explains Mike Mothner, founder and CEO of Wpromote in why it pays to make sure you’re getting seen by Google.
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