Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
SEO is the art, craft and science of getting your website or a specific page in the top 10 of search engines without paying for the position. For some, it can seem almost like a pipe dream, to appear in those coveted free spots.
SEO is really complex and at the same time easy. Each search engine has slightly different demands for the pages they allow to appear on the front page. The search engines aim to bring the best and most relevant information to those that search. They don’t care who you are, or what you got, but you have to convince them that your information is relevant and solid.
Generally, it is important to find one major keyword that you believe your customers search on for the article you are writing. That keyword or keyword string has to appear several times, evenly spaced out, but not too many times. It also has to appear in the URL, in the page name, and in the first 5-7 words. Finding out exactly how many times the keyword ought to appear might work with the search engines. Although they all have different criteria. On the other hand, an article is often poorly written if it is written exclusively for SEO. Another way to get SEO optimization is to build a large website with one or two keywords appearing in each and every article a few times over.
Several Search Engines – especially Google – are known for looking at how many links go back to the website and ranking according to that. This is an easy short cut, as long as the articles are minimally keyworded.
It is also possible to do a lot of research on keywords and find out which ones are searched 1000-2000 times a day, but has little competition, and then write one or more articles specifically for that keyword.
I have managed to get many pages on the first ten pages several times in my career. It is however, not easy and takes a lot of work. Sometimes the flow of the writing suffers if I have to work exclusively on SEO. I have chosen the middle ground with my articles. I keyword several of them, but never on expense of the writing. Instead I work with back-links to gain traction.
Brick and Mortar stores have a wonderful chance to get google traffic to their website, even without SEO. Google makes efforts to give the surfers the best experience. If you go to your google and type in your city name + the main topic of your store – for instance: Glen Ellen, CA + Chocolate, then you get all the stores that specialize in chocolate around that city. They come up with a google map and the links on the right side. Some of those listings will have a url that starts with maps.google.com. This means that the business is on the coveted first page without paying for it, yet they are not taking advantage of the position. This is about the saddest negligence of a huge opportunity that I know.
