Creating a website is a vital part of competing in today’s marketplace. However, merely having a website is not enough. Thousands of websites go completely unnoticed on the World Wide Web due to the fact that they are not optimized in such a way that they will show up frequently when someone is looking for a website on a particular topic.
How can companies promote their businesses online and enhance their online presence? The Internet is a fantastic marketing resource that offers companies many opportunities for exposure and publicity. Encouraging website traffic involves a complex body of techniques that are known as Search Engine Optimization, and all of these techniques are based on what is known of search engine algorithms. Search engine algorithms are the tools used by search engines such as Google and Yahoo! to pull up appropriate websites when a searcher makes a query.
The Basic Techniques in Search Engine Optimization
- Keywords– Optimize your site around certain keywords. What words will a potential customer query on a search engine to come upon your products or services? Ask yourself this question: What purposes is my business serving? This should help you determine keywords. However, you should also look up how often the keywords you’re considering come up in web searches. This kind of information can be found online.
- Backlinks– Backlinks are hyperlinks on other pages on the Internet that bring Internet users to your site. Having backlinks that link to your site can improve your website’s search engine rankings. Low-quality links can bring more harm than good, so try avoiding things like building profiles on free directories that don’t require any sort of verification or guest posting on low quality blogs and forums.
- Content– Posting pertinent and useful content on your website can help boost the popularity of your website and encourage Internet users to visit. You can develop content through webpages that explain your company’s mission statement, products, and services. You can also built on content significantly if you post a blog.
- Registration– Most search engines allow site owners the opportunity to register their site. This can pointedly notify a search engine of the existence of your site and increase your chances of search engine recognition.
- Penalties– Most search engines enforce some system of penalties. If a website designer uses what are consider “black hat”, or illegitimate, techniques to raise its search engine ranking, a search engine can retaliate by downgrading a website’s ranking.
- Social media– Being active on social media networks such as Facebook, Google Plus, Pinterest Twitter can stimulate a website’s popularity and improve a website’s search engine ranking.
These are all general rules and concepts that can help you enhance your website’s online presence. However, it’s important to note that search engines often change their algorithms so that different sites are recognized in preference of others. Slight changes in algorithms take place constantly, and website owners need to pay attention to these changes or they could notice a decrease in traffic and, as a result, business.
Of any search engine, Google has the most influence and receives the most notice. Two major changes of the Google algorithm have been widely publicized in recent years. These include the Google Panda update and the Google Penguin update.
Updates on the Google algorithm can be monitored and quickly analyzed in terms of how they pertain to individual websites with the use of the Google Penalty Checker Tool offered by Fruition. Using this tool, website owners and administrators can instantaneously receive a report on how their website will be affected by Panda, Penguin, and any additional updates to the Google algorithm. This tool gives website administrators feedback on over 30 different adjustments to the Google algorithm that have taken place in recent years.
Other tools that website owners can consider using to maintain their Google rankings include Google XML Sitemaps, Google Trends, and Scribe. Google XML Sitemaps allows users to improve the way that their blogs are indexed by Google. Not only does Google XML Sitemaps assist with Google, but it also helps with the indexation of sites on Bing, Yahoo! and Ask.com as well. Google Trends provides both historical and geographical data that is relevant to search engine marketing, and Scribe assists users with harnessing social media, promoting search engine rankings, and identifying the best keywords for a given site.
About the Author: Anca Bradley is a highly respected expert in the field of internet business marketing. Her experience includes several years of making contributions to a wide variety of projects, such as Pay-Per-Click ad management (PPC), Search Engine Optimizations (SEO), Social Media Campaigns and other web strategies that are crucial in today’s online business sphere. Anca recently made a career move to Denver, CO after accepting a position as an Inbound Marketing Manager at Fruition Internet Marketing expertise.