Basic search engine optimization (SEO) is fundamental and essential. SEO will help you position your website to be found at the most critical points in the search process.
What are search engines looking for? How can you build your website that will bring visitors, as well as Google, Bing, and other search engines? Most importantly, how can SEO help your web presence become more profitable?
The goal of SEO is to create a great, seamless user experience. This is done by communicating to the search engines your keywords so they can recommend your website for relevant searches.
What Search Engines Are Looking For - Search engines want to do their jobs by referring users to websites and content that is the most relevant to what the user is looking for. This is determined by the theme that is being given, the text on the page, and the titles and descriptions that are given, and content.
What Search Engines Are not Looking For - Search engine spiders only have a certain amount of data storage, and if you're trying to trick them, chances are you're going to hurt yourself in the long run.
Know Your Business Model - Many people do not sit down and focus on what their main goals are. Some questions you need to ask yourself are:
- What defines a conversion for you?
- Are you selling impressions or what people click on?
- What are your goals?
- Do you know your assets and liabilities?
Optimize for Multi-Channels - Keyword strategy is not only important to implement, but should extend to other off-site platforms, which is why you should be thinking about multi-channel optimization. Multi-channel platforms include:
- Facebook
- Twitter
- LinkedIn
- Email
- Offline, such as radio and TV ads
Being consistent with keyword phrases within these channel platforms will help your branding efforts, and train users to use specific phrases you're optimizing for.
Optimizing for Different Types of Results - In addition to optimizing for the desktop experience, make sure to focus on mobile and tablet optimization as well as other media.
Create rich media content as it's easier to get a video to rank on the first page than it is to get a plain text page to rank.
Focus on Your Meta Data - Your content on your site should have title tags and meta descriptions. Meta keywords are often ignored by search engines, however if you still use them, make sure it talks specifically to that page. Your meta description should be unique and speak to that specific page.
You should keep SEO in the forefront of your mind, and follow best practices. Skipping the basics of SEO will leave your site's foundation a mess and prevent you from fully maximizing business opportunities.