When I first entered the search industry, the first learning curve I faced was understanding how search engines work. The big breakthrough came when I started to understand what the real purpose of a search engine was.
Like any other business, a search engine strives to deliver relevant search results to the person doing the research. If it fails to provide the best search results with the most useful content, searchers may head to another search engine to find what they're looking for. Once I realized this, it was easy to see why SEO is crucial to the success of a business.
So what is SEO?
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the process of organically (or naturally) generating traffic from the major search engines through non-paid methods. Search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing evaluate websites based on a variety of factors to determine the best results to show. SEO is the process of proving to search engines that your website is a relevant and useful result for certain keywords.
I mentioned "a lot of factors" that search engine algorithms evaluate. Search Engine Land has developed a fantastic resource called "The Periodic Table of SEO Success Factors". This table defines the most important SEO factors and techniques.
Why do i need SEO?
The age of the Internet has arrived. In fact, he's been there for a while. In 2012, during a search event, Google announced that it responds to 100 billion searches per month. There are now over 6.5 billion a day. In addition, since January 2012, there are around 10 new Internet users per second. Search engines have become the epicenter of how people navigate the Internet. For example, 68% of online experiences start with a search engine and 81% of internet users browse or search for products / services online.
In the past, all you had to do was have a website for your business. Today, with all the noise consumers make when making a purchasing decision, a website alone is not enough. Your website should come first when consumers start their research. Otherwise, you run the risk of never being in their sights. SEO, when done right, can be a game-changer in a company's marketing efforts. Traditional marketing methods like TV, radio or print advertising position your business in front of many people who don't need your products / services right now and only a few who do. SEO puts your business in front of people who are looking for exactly what you are offering.
The key is to do something today
You might be brand new to SEO, you might have dabbled in it a bit, or you might even be an SEO master. Whatever your SEO ninja skills are, pick one thing from the periodic table of SEO success factors and put it to work in your online marketing. Good SEO is an accumulation of many small tasks that don't do much on their own but add up for a huge impact. If you do a little SEO implementation today, tomorrow, and every day, you will soon be on your way to higher search engine rankings, resulting in more traffic, more customers, and more. success.
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