Search engine optimization is not a very hard concept to grasp. Here we discuss the term SEO and what it all entails in simple terms. Internet marketing is absolutely important for any web property that you own and if you are in the business of long term results, you can not speak of internet marketing without considering search engine optimization of your website.

1. The Dummies Guide
Compiled by:
Top Deck SEO - topdeck.com
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2. Introduction
Many people often find the term search engine optimization(SEO) a very complex and confusing
one. Every business owner or corporate understands the importance of having a website in today's
world. Websites are basically the face of the company on the online community. This is the office
that your potential clients walk into online.
To ensure that you make sales, it is
very important that your office is
presentable. However, it is not just
enough to have a state of the art office
and you have no mechanism of
driving potential clients to the office.
This is where search engine
optimization plays a major role. It
helps in driving a certain traffic to
your website and possibly convert the
traffic to sales.
Having a website on its own is not enough. Marketing the website is very important if you are
targeting the online audience. Whatever it is that you are selling online, it is important that you use
certain marketing strategies to ensure that you drive your traffic through the buying funnel.
Demonstration of Search Engine Optimization
Whenever you want something, one first goes to the internet to find information about the
particular thing. Because you have no idea where to get it, you will not go straight to your browser
and type in an exact domain name. Mostly, you will use your favorite search engine.
Search engines are websites with databases of all other websites with the information they contain.
These sites usually help internet users to search for particular information that they need and the
provide them with results according to relevance.
The most popular search engine across the world is Google. Google is a very useful resource that has
been used over the years to find information on various subjects. There are very many search
engines across the world with some being famous in particular regions. Other search engines that
are also popular include Bing, Yahoo and Ask.
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3. When you are searching for information about something, you usually type a search string in the
bar. The search engine will load a number of results for you. Have you ever stopped and asked
yourself why among one million results that are being displayed, one particular one comes out in
the first place?
You might think that Google or the search engine you are using is unfair but this particular result is
the one that is most relevant to your search. This is the result that is thought to have the particular
information that you want.
In this competitive world, you will want to be with the most relevant information in your particular
field. When you are ranked number one in Google or other search engines, you are most likely to
enjoy the greatest amount of traffic to your site for that particular search string.
When visitors land on your website, it is equally important that they find what they are looking for.
It is important that you make you website easy to use and ensure that it loads fast. This ensures that
you retain your visitors to your website and convert some into customers.
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4. Alternatively you can pay to appear on the top results. When you google something, there are top
results that are usually highlighted. These are results that are paid for. However, research has shown
that most users overlook the paid results and go for the organic search results.
How Search Engine Optimization Works
SEO works on different levels. It takes time to build relevance online especially for the fact that you
competitors might have been on it for a couple of years. This must never dampen your spirits on the
other hand. You can put up a spirited fight online and outdo them in their own game.
Search engines like Google normally index all the websites. Google bots crawl in each and every
website to find out what kind of content is in the website. They then have particular algorithms that
help determine the ranking of particular websites for particular search strings or keywords.
These algorithms change over time and at times affect the rankings of websites. It is therefore
important that as much as you want your content to be readable to your online visitors, it is also
readable to the bots.
SEO strategies ensure that the two marry and your website enjoys a fair share of online traffic that
comes from the search engine.
Step by Step Process of SEO
Below is a simple step by step SEO process that ensures that your website's rankings are improved
and hence you get traffic to your website.
1. Keyword Research
This is the first basic step that you need to take
to know what relevant keywords or search
strings that people are looking for. A great tool
that is normally used is the Google AdWords
that help you to see which particular search
strings have the most traffic. This can even be
filtered according to location just in case you
need visitors from a particular region.
2. On-Site SEO
This is optimization of the content that is in
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5. your website. It is important that this is carefully done and avoid overdoing elements. As much as
having keywords in your content helps, overdoing this will kill your website as it will be viewed as
spam.
On-Site Search engine optimization includes changing of title tags, inserting meta tags and meta
description on pages of the website. Using a CMS like wordPress or Joomla makes it very easy for
you to do all this. You can use various plugins that help you fully optimize your website.
Other aspects that you need to check on include internal links, header tags, images names and their
alt tags.
3. Content Strategy
As they always say, content is King. It is important that you website has content. The more content
that you site has, the more likely that you will be
able to retain visitors to your website. You can
constantly put blog posts, news articles or HowTo guides on your website that will help keep
your visitors looking for more.
The content that you put on your website must be
of good quality. Many times, people focus so
much on search engine robots and forgetting that
the online visitors are not robots. Visitors want
content that they can read through easily and find information that they need.
4. Link Building
This is arguably the most important strategy when it comes to SEO. Link building basically means
that you grow your website such that it is linked to as much relevant websites as possible. The battle
for rankings on search engine is basically a popularity contest and therefore the more websites you
are associated with, the more you are seen to be relevant in the particular field.
However, this is the place that most people would go wrong with SEO. As much as you are hungry
for links, it is important that you do not get greedy for links. You might get greedy and want your
website to rank the next day. This might be very costly in the long run.
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6. Putting a huge number of links to improve rankings of a website in a short period of time is known
as blackhat. Blackhat is not usually the best option. This in most cases entails using spam content to
give your website a number of links.
However, whitehat is the way to go. This entails growing your website organically over time. In time
you will find that your website greatly improves on various search engines. Whitehat is the best
option and you are not at any risk. With blackhat, your website risks being banned by the search
engines and you will never be found on results again.
5. Social Media
There are various social engine platforms. The most popular social engine platform is Facebook.
Other social media networks include twitter, pinterest, myspace, tagged etc. However, when it
comes to Search Engine Optimization, the most
important social media network is Google Plus.
Sharing your content on various social networks not
only puts your website out there but also greatly helps to
improve the rankings, especially with Google+. This also
gives you free backlinks back to your website.
Therefore it is important that you ensure that you have
many likes of Facebook, a number of followers on twitter
and also a good number of followers on your G+ page.
These are the basics of search engine optimization. Following these steps will ensure that your
website improves over time and within a few months, you should be ranking for a number of
keywords. Ranking is directly proportional to traffic.
When looking for SEO Experts, ensure that you do not go for someone who promises to rank your
website after a week. Search Engine Optimization is an ongoing process and therefore it does not
require that much speed in itself.
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7. This Information was Compiled to you by:
Top Deck SEO
Visit this link below for more info
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