Our guest blogger this week is Chad Nelson, President of Champion Online Marketing. Chad has some valuable insights to offer on the subject of search engine optimization and what it means for the business owner.
Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is an often used term but one that many or most people don’t fully understand. On an almost daily basis I get asked, “What is SEO?” Before diving into the definition of “SEO” it is best if we take a quick look at the normal process involved when someone searches for a product or service on the Internet.
When a potential customer is looking for a local company to purchase a product or service they typically type in the word or words (called keywords) they are looking for into a search engine.
Let’s look at an example. If you were looking for an accounting firm and you lived in the Granite Bay, CA area, you might type in the keyword phrase “Granite Bay accountant” into a search engine. Search engines are websites that then go out into the vast expanse of the Internet and provide a list of search results that it feels are the most relevant to the keyword the searcher just typed in. The most popular search engine is Google, and then Bing and Yahoo round out the top three search engines. The search engine will then show the websites it thinks are the best match for the keywords the searcher typed in. In our example, the search engine would return with a list of accounting companies in or near the Granite Bay area. The accountants that the search engines will show are the ones that have been active and done the best job with their search engine optimization.
Search engine optimization, or SEO, refers to the process and strategies involved in trying to get your website to be one of the first websites that a search engine lists when someone is searching for keywords that are related to the product or service that you provide. (If you would like to learn more about Sacramento SEO or for any other area feel free to contact us.)
SEO encompasses a lot of strategies but it can be boiled down into 3 basic categories or strategies – keywords, On Page Optimization and Off Page Optimization. Don’t worry, they’re easy to understand once you get a little explanation.
Let’s start with keywords. Keywords, as mentioned above, are the word(s) or phrases that people type into the search engine when they are looking for a product or service. Since these are the words that your potential customers will be using it is critical to do some research to find out the correct words that people are actually using to search for the products or services that you offer. Not what you “think” they are typing in, but what they are “actually” typing in.
There’s no room for guesswork here. It would be a huge blunder to assume you know the keywords that people are typing in only to find out many months and potentially lots of dollars later that you picked the wrong ones or missed some. A great place you can do lots of free research is Google’s free Keyword Tool. Just go to Google.com or any search engine and type in the keyword “Google Free Keyword Tool” and you will find it. Spend some time and do some research to find different keywords that your potential customers are typing into the search engines when they are looking for what your company has to offer.
Spending the time and effort to research for the right keywords that your potential customers are actually using is a crucial first step to a successful SEO campaign. Once you’ve identified the keywords you want to rank high for you can move on to the next step in your Search Engine Optimization campaign – On Page Optimization.
Part 2 will go into detail and give some free tips on how to effectively proceed with your On Page Optimization.
If you have any questions regarding this post please feel free to contact us.
This article was written by Chad Nelson, President of Champion Online Marketing “Bare Knuckle Tactics for Internet and Mobile Marketing”