How to Become Famous Online

Posted by Mark Hess

____________________________________________________________________________________________

Well, OK, maybe not famous, but how about having your website appearing on the first page of a search engine like Google when people search for terms related to your business? The art of Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is crucial to your business if there’s any chance potential customers might find you through a search online.

Essentially SEO is working on getting your website to rank highly for keywords, or terms actual people use to find what they want online. Yes, it’s competitive out there, and that’s why you should make it a priority to reach that first page ranking, meaning your website must be one of the first ten listings presented to a searcher! Any position beyond the 10th and you’re likely to get ignored.

Why SEO? 

Half of the Internet's traffic comes from organic search results. That means people are searching for something and don’t know where to go to find it. That could be your company. Take a moment to think about how huge that is. There are literally billions of searches everyday. Many of those searchers might be looking for something you could sell them. That is why you should focus on SEO; higher rankings will improve your bottom line. If it's not easy to find you, how are you going to take advantage of all the possible traffic you can get from search engines?

The SEO Dilemma; and Solution

The problem is that it’s not easy or simple to rank for keywords, or terms, a dozen other companies similar to yours might want to rank for as well. You have to do a number of things to make search engines give you a high ranking for certain keywords or keyword phrases. Sure, if you sell otter teeth jewelry you might not have any competition and therefore not need SEO; but if you’re like most businesses, you have competition so you need to finesse your SEO.

Here are a few basics:

Website Structure: How your site appears to users is a very important factor for search engines. But equally important is how the underpinnings of your site are handled. You need correct alt text for every image, a keyword rich meta description, H1, H2 and H3 heading labels on every page containing vital and different keywords pertaining to your business, correctly titled pages, and the list goes on. Making sure your headlines, your opening paragraph, and images coordinate are other technical aspects that you need to consider for SEO.

Content: The algorithms behind big search engines have started to focus on content over everything else. If your site is all fluff , or repetitive, it will not be recognized as important and will severely drop your rankings. If your content is exactly the same as on another site, you’ll be hurt as well.

The Correct Keywords: There are ways to identify the keywords and keyword phrases that people are searching for if they are looking for a company or a product like yours.

Inbound Links: Super important to search engine ranking are the other websites out there that link to your site. Recently Google has made it a no-no to get links from so called “Link Farms”, or sites set up purely to link to other sites to raise rankings. Now you get demerits for these links.

Patience: SEO is something that takes time, even when you are doing it right. Be patient and you’ll watch as your site climbs the ladder, and your profits increase.

Authority Rankings: This is the bottom line in SEO. This is a moving number that search engines assign you as they see how important your site is, how many and who visits your site, and how high the authority ranking is of the sites who link to yours.

Changing Landscape of SEO

As mentioned above, content is one aspect that means a lot to a search engine. But tricks like keyword stuffing, where the same 10 words or phrases are mindlessly repeated throughout a site will not work anymore. In fact Google has a page dedicated to webmasters who want to know how to optimize their search rankings. It’s complicated, but available at google.com/webmasters/tools. The sharing of great content through social media is another part of SEO that is important and growing in importance. You do not want to fall behind in the times with this.

So don’t wait to start working on your company’s SEO. You can start simply and get more masterful as you go by visiting some of the great, first rate vendors on the next tabs; or trying out a highly discounted deal where you can save a lot of money getting your feet wet.

Mark Hess is a marketer and small business expert as well as an award winning illustrator, painter, graphic designer, entrepreneur and co-founder of BizSaves; with a passion for online marketing and small business success.
_______________________________________________________________

More SEO Articles You Might Like:

Forbes: The 6 Basic Components Of A Strong SEO Strategy For Online Retailers Forbes: 5 To Do's Before Choosing An SEO Agency For Your Startup Mashable: How to Optimize Your Mobile Website for Search