SEO 101
Contrary to what some people think, your website is not visible on the web just because you opened it for business. The sales are not going to start pouring in just because your site exists. A brand new online store or business is but a mere speck in the sea of millions, if not billions, of other sites just like it out there in the cyber shopping world. And finding it–without benefit of Search Engine Optimization (SEO)–is like finding the proverbial needle in the haystack.
SEO is basically like a roadmap for the search engines. Done correctly, it enables the search engines to find your site. And when it’s done well, it gets your site page one placement in the SERP’s (Search Engine Results Pages), which is the goal–because that’s how shoppers and surfers are going to find your website most of the time. They are going to go to Google (let’s face it, they have the dominant market share and that’s not changing any time soon), type in a keyword or phrase and hit Google Search. And when they do, you want your website to be in the results on that first page–preferably near the top.
Marketing and promoting your website, with SEO in mind, is your number one job as you open for business. And it’s not a one shot deal…it is an ongoing process, and one that is absolutely necessary to ensure your business’s success. Most people whose online businesses close during the first year, or even the first six months of operation, were likely a victim of poor sales caused by a lack of traffic to their site. And they likely were ignorant about the type and amount of work that must be dedicated to SEO in order to generate that traffic.
You have to know from the get-go that just because you open an online store or business, you are NOT going to get instant sales. You’re not even going to get instant traffic. As I said, you’re invisible…that is, until you start utilizing all the important factors of effective SEO.
The most important factors for effective SEO, in my opinion, include the following items.
- Keyword Rich Content & Metatags: Meta Tags are the HTML tags that appear in your webpage header, which provide information for the search engines. Keywords are basically the words that people will use when querying search engines, and they should be relevant to what you sell/offer on your website. Keywords should appear in your meta tags, but also in your website content (text).
- Unique and Regularly Updated Content: The search engines like to provide people with links to sites that have unique content, and content that is updated often. So you need to pay attention to the content of your site and add new content on a regular basis. You can do this by way of articles, tips and information, featured products that rotate often, contests and prizes, etc.
- Backlinks: Also known as Link Building, this is the process of getting other website owners to provide links to your website on their own. In effect, it’s a way for the search engines to gauge your website’s popularity. The more quality and relevant backlinks you have, the better it is for the SE’s. And these backlinks are primarily what determine your website’s Page Rank and other things too. Page Rank doesn’t appear to be as important as it once was, but it’s still a factor, so you need to pay some attention to it.
- Sitemap: There are two types of Sitemaps--one that is intended for human eyes and is basically an HTML “map” that aides in site navigation; and one that is only intended for the search engines and is not visible to human eyes on your site. The search engine sitemap is usually in XML format and it assists the spiders and bots in crawling all the pages of your website for the search engines. Making things easier for the spiders is always best for your site, so it’s an important part of your SEO.
- Robots.txt File: When the spiders and bots arrive to crawl your website, they will look for a special file called Robots.txt. This file tells the spiders which pages of your website should get indexed on the search engines; it also tells them which pages should be ignored. It must be a plain text file and must be located in your root directory, and it’s a necessary part of your site’s SEO.
- Social Networking: Believe it or not, social networking is now a must-have where Google is concerned. They expect you to have a Facebook and/or Twitter account, and that is a factor in how your website is placed in the SERP’s. So if you don’t have an account on at least one of those sites, it’s definitely time to start thinking about getting one.
You can find more information about all of these SEO factors on other pages of our website. And once you’ve gotten that, be sure to search the Web for even more information, as there is lots more of it out there related to Search Engine Optimization.
