What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?
Search Engine Optimization or SEO is the process of creating and fine-tuning your Web site to get high organic results in search engines for your targeted keyword phrases. Search engines are now the third most popular online activity, behind using email and general Web surfing. More than 127 million Americans routinely use search engines to find what they’re looking for on the Internet.

 

For any keyword phrase someone types into a search engine, a unique set of Web page results is displayed. The three largest search engines – Google, Yahoo and MSN – all use slightly different algorithms to determine which pages rank highest. Search Engine Optimization involves understanding and implementing the best practices for getting your page higher in these rankings for the searches that are relevant and profitable for your business.

It’s important to distinguish between two sets of search engine results that come up for any particular search. There are “organic” or “natural” results, which a company cannot pay to be placed in a certain position. These are typically in the center of the search engine results page. There are also paid search results which companies can pay on a per-click basis to be listed in a certain position on the search engine results page for a particular keyword search. These results typically are at the very top of the results and on the right side of the page and usually are labeled as “sponsored” listings.

How to Implement Search Engine Optimization
Optimizing your site for search engines takes careful, detail-oriented planning and execution, and constant ongoing work to maintain or increase your positions. No one can guarantee you a particular search engine result for a particular search – there are too many variables that the search engines use to determine the rankings. So beware of any company that guarantees you a number 1 ranking for your keyword. There’s always a catch.

That being said, by following SEO best practices and creating and marketing your Web site with SEO in mind, you will achieve significant increases in your search engine results.

Key SEO best practices include:

• Site Development: making sure your Web site is developed so that search engine robots or spiders (they crawl the Internet indexing all Web pages) can easily access and understand content on your pages

• Keyword Targeting: determining which keywords are most important to the success of your business and writing (or editing) the content on your Web site so that it is focused on this set of keywords

• Linking: optimizing the internal linking of pages in your site for SEO. Obtaining other Web sites related to your business to link to your Web site.
  

How to NOT Implement Search Engine Optimization
There are many “black hat” SEO techniques that companies and firms try to use to trick the search engines into ranking them highly. These include keyword stuffing or spamming, cloaking (a kind of “bait and switch”), use of invisible text and links, use of link farms, and more. Often these techniques work for a short time, until the search engine finds you and bans you from all listings. These techniques are unethical and not worth the risk. Intelligent site design, excellent site content, and implementation of SEO best practices is the only way to achieve sustainable higher rankings.

The Chair 10 Marketing SEO Approach

• Analyze your product and market

• Create a set of target keywords and work with you to refine it

• Assess the structure of your website and advise your developers on any changes needed to allow for better indexing by search engines (Can the search engine robots effectively reach and spider your site? Are your website URL’s search engine-friendly?)

• Edit web site text and create new web site pages to optimize your site for your target keyword phrases

• Edit internal links and link text to follow SEO best practices

• Analyze the number of inbound links your site currently has and compare this with your key competitors

• Create a gameplan to increase your site’s inbound links

• Create weekly reports to track progress of getting organic rankings for target keywords

• Modify website (tweak text, create new pages), generate more inbound links, measure results, etc.

Search engine optimization can seem complicated and time-consuming. That’s why we are here to help! Doing at a minimum basic search engine optimization for your Web site is essential for any business operating on the Internet. But do you have time to become an expert on all the various algorithms search engines use to rank sites? No, you have to run your business! Use Chair 10 Marketing as your search engine optimization expert.

>> Contact Chair 10 Marketing for a Free Consultation

 

 

 

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