by Stephanie ?Stover, Search Engine Specialist, Brighton College
SEO or Search Engine Optimization is the means of creating and enhancing the online presence of your business, organization, website or blog. By optimizing your website for search engines, you can increase your site?s rankings for specific keywords, bringing potential clients and customers to your website.
Different methods are used in order to obtain first-page results on search engines; however, certain tactics can actually get you penalized or banned from search engines. Hiring the wrong SEO company or using ?black hat? SEO methods can cost your business money as well as your reputation. Before creating an online marketing strategy, here are the top 5 things you need to know about SEO.
1. SEO Can Make You Money
Depending on the target audience and demand for your product or service, SEO can make your business money. When a user inputs a keyword into Google or another search engine, the user is searching for something specifically related to your business. Since the user has demonstrated an interest in your product or service by searching for it, the user is now considered a pre-qualified lead. By increasing the amount of pre-qualified leads being sent to the website, the likelihood of converting those leads into paying clients or customers also increases, which eventually generates revenue.
2. Poor Quality SEO Can Harm Your Business
Many entrepreneurs and businesses spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on SEO and never obtain a positive return on their investment, which is often due to poor quality SEO. Not performing adequate research prior to optimizing the website can result in little or no traffic or the wrong type of traffic being sent to the site. Additionally, using the wrong methods can get your site penalized or banned from major search engines, which could cost you millions of dollars in potential revenue.
3. High Quality SEO Takes Time
Once the website has been properly optimized for specific keywords, the search engines then need to spider, catch and index the URLs and associated keywords before they can be ranked. This process takes time, and obtaining rankings on the first page of Google takes even longer. SEO is a long-term strategy; therefore, those who are looking for a quicker return on investment should start with a pay-per-click advertising platform such as Google Adwords while employing the long term SEO strategy.
4. Google Likes Natural SEO
Content creation and link building strategies should be natural, or at least look natural to Google. Create quality content that your target audience will want to read, and they will share and link to your content on their own. Using outdated link building strategies such as link exchanges, guestbook or blog comments, or hundreds of general directory links will not increase your rankings as much as regularly updated content.
5. Legitimate SEO Companies Do Not Guarantee Rankings
Google initiates over 500 algorithm updates per year[1], most of which are not announced to the public. Therefore it is impossible for an SEO company to know every detail of the search engine?s algorithm. In addition, rankings can drop without notice, as Google doesn?t release updates until after changes have been made. If an SEO company guarantees rankings read the contract carefully before signing.
Search engine optimization can be difficult and dangerous if not performed correctly. ?Businesses and entrepreneurs who would rather learn SEO than hire a company to do it for them can take advantage of quick training from a career college such as where I work at Brighton College in BC. Brighton College offers internet marketing courses and a diploma program to ensure its students learn how to make money from SEO without harming their business.?
About the Author
Stephanie Stover, the Search Engine Specialist for Brighton College in Vancouver, B.C., has worked on SEO and PPC campaigns for all types of businesses including local companies, mid-sized businesses and fortune 500 companies.
Twitter: ?https://twitter.com/brightoncol
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brightoncollege?
[1] Google Algorithm Change History, SEOMoz.org
Source: http://www.mri.gov.on.ca/blog/index.php/2013/04/stover-2/
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