Friday, August 1, 2014

What is SEO?

In this day and age, I sometimes can’t believe that people ask that question. But so many businesses don’t have the time to dedicate to internet research, so some of the information does fall through the cracks.
SEO is simple and at the same time, incredibly complex. It stands for “search engine optimization.” But what does THAT mean?
There are three major search engines, Google, Yahoo, and Bing. There are others that have been around for a while but haven’t caught on, or that try to pop up and don’t gain ground. Google is the most popular, to the point where we sometimes hear “google” being used as a verb- I’m going to google it, for instance.
The people behind the search engines are pretty smart and they know that everyone wants to be on the first page of google or yahoo or bing. They also know that businesses are willing to do unethical things to gain that page ranking. So they are CONSTANTLY changing the methods for deciding whether a site is relevant or not, and they basically use a mathematical equation called an algorithm to figure it all out. The trouble is, they don’t tell anyone what it is! So when you are optimizing your site, you are trying to figure it out… it can be like shooting in the dark.
The best way to optimize your site for the search engines is to be thorough and honest. Write and post about your niche or product, be honest about it. Make sure you use the words that people in your field or shopping for your product or service would use. Then you have to be sure that you are relevant. Google does not like websites that haven’t updated in a year, they feel that the site is dead an no longer relevant, so your page ranking will drop as new more updated sites take over.
Maintaining your websites SEO is an ongoing and constant job. If you can’t hire a marketing person to do this for you, your internet presence will suffer. Hint- you can hire me :)

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