Have a great website for your business does not guarantee that it will get the high traffic volume you want. There are many ways to increase the traffic to your website and the fastest way involves search engine optimization. SEO may seem complicated at first glance but with the right tools it can be very easy. You can choose to hire a professional to optimize your site or you can choose to do it yourself for less than half the cost. If you choose to do it yourself, you will need a basic understanding of how search engines work and a few simple online tools.
How Search Engines Work
Search engines such as Google rely are comprised of three different types of software. The first searches the internet for different sites using text and URLs. The second type catalogs the information and indexes the words the first software picked up. The third software is on the searcher’s end, this software takes the keywords or phrases from the search and looks for them through the pages that were picked up and indexed. Knowing how a search engine works can greatly help you in search engine optimization.
Finding Keywords
Once you have figured out how to optimize your website for search engines, it is time to figure out which keywords will work best. Whether you are a paid blogger or a business looking for new potential customers will determine the types of keywords and phrases you want to use. Many people make the mistake of choosing a very popular niche as their keyword. This will help you get some new traffic but the best way is to select a micro niche. A micro niche is a very specific keyword or phrase that is selected by analyzing the search data. There are many types of software programs that will help you find a micro niche that fits your needs best. You can choose to purchase software, use the free tools provided by search engines such as Google or attempt to select the keyword yourself.
Using Keywords
Once you have selected your keywords, it is time to figure out the best way to use them. Remember that often time’s people will spell a word incorrectly in their search; usually Google will ask them if they meant another spelling but, you can generate more profit by using these odd searches to your benefit. If you choose to use professional software, you will see many micro niches that contain spelling or typographical errors. These may seem like accidents to you but they are actually done on purpose. Each time someone searches for something Google will count that in their search data and the more times that same spelling is searched the more popular that niche becomes. Remember if your page relies on ad revenue for income targeting those high volume searches means more money in your pocket.
Backlinks
When most businesses consider search engine optimization, they put the full focus on the keywords and ignore all other aspects most search engines use to categorize pages. Remember the three types of software we discussed in the beginning of this article? Well that software is known as spider software and it looks for many factors when picking up data to be used by the second software. Next to keywords, the most important thing the spider software will look for is the number of backlinks to your page. A backlink is a link that originates from an external site and leads visitors to your site. The greater the number of backlinks your site has the more popular it is considered by the search engine. One of the easiest ways to get other sites to create links to your site is through guest writing. Guest writing is especially beneficial to those who are looking to promote their blog to an outside audience. Many large pages will allow beginning bloggers to write a blog for their site and include a link to the writer’s site as well as a brief biography of the contributing writer.
Content and Structure
While focusing on getting your page noticed by search engines, it may be easy to forget that content truly does matter. You want to create content that not only uses your keywords but also benefits your visitors. Each person that visits your page is there because they typed your keyword into a search engine to find information. By not providing the information the visitors are looking for, they may report your site to the search engine.
Structure is also very important when designing an optimized website. You want to make sure each of your pages is easily accessed at one central point such as your homepage. You also want to make sure that once the visitor is at a secondary page, that it is easy to return to the starting page or move to a different page. By making the website simple to navigate, you are more likely to keep visitors scrolling through your content looking for additional information.
Photo Credit: Flickr/Max Braun
