Search Engine Optimization (SEO), done correctly, makes a difference in your website being among the first viewers see. This method, using keywords, phrases and links, is a method for helping a website get to the top of results on search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing. Read on to learn more about tools and best practices for SEO as well as shortcuts to avoid.
Start with Quality Content and Enhance with Links
Good content–engaging, well-written and grammatically correct–is part of on-page SEO, which ensures that your website will be compatible with common search engines. Start with 250-300 words of good content, weaving keywords and phrases in organically. These keywords and phrases can be part of your titles, page descriptions, even your URL if possible. Keywords can also double as tags. The purpose of use of keywords is to get your website incremental, organic traffic, and get your business potential leads. Another content strategy is linking–both linking to other websites and having other websites link to yours (backlinking). The benefit of linking to other pages is showing that you have done research on your industry, and the benefit of backlinking is to show that other businesses find your content significant. Backlinking can be done on sites like Google+, LinkedIn, Facebook, and others.
The Ethics of SEO
Plenty of tools and best practices exist to help you avoid the shortcuts offered by “black hat” SEO techniques. Some of these techniques include keyword stuffing and developing “doorway” pages. Such practices are overly aggressive as well as deceptive. Keyword stuffing means using keywords in a contrived way, or inserting completely irrelevant keywords in an attempt to boost your page rating. Doorway pages are pages that are inserted to make a visitor think they are going to receive additional content, but actually leads them nowhere. No matter the shortcut, it results in a negative user experience, and moves your page down, rather than up, in the search results–exactly the opposite of the desired result. Many search engines including Google may penalize your site or remove it entirely for black hat SEO techniques.
Assessing Your Current SEO
The best way to get an idea of where your business’ website comes up in search results, is to look for it on a search engine. Is it on the first page or two? If so, you’re on the right track. If it’s further down, contact ClikCloud today to get assistance and become an SEO star.
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