We've heard it over and over again, that anyone who is in business today and who doesn't have a website is losing out on customers and clients. So now those same people that told us we absolutely must have a website are now out telling us that we all now need to have to have an active SEO policy, that the website on its own just isn't enough. So then just what is SEO anyway and why is it so important?
In plain language SEO stands for (search engine optimization). It's the means how you attract people to your site and with so many sites out there now, knowing about SEO is more crucial than it ever was.
Sure 10 years ago you could get by without it if you were in a fairly exclusive market niche. Today however, you just don't have that luxury anymore because there's tough competition everywhere you go now on the Internet.
Picturing in your mind how SEO works is easy. All you have to do is imagine the Internet as a giant shopping centre, which in a sense it is. Now of course the best place for your stall or kiosk in that shopping centre would be right up by the front entrance where everybody has to walk by. Beyond that any place that puts you in the way of a good flow of traffic is your next best choice, but what you don't want is a place in the back.
Right now there are a series of keywords that relate to your business. For instance if you were selling restaurant equipment online one of your prime, if not best keywords, would be restaurant equipment. Then after that you'll have a whole series of other related keywords like food slicers, refrigerators, commercial fryers, and the list just goes on and on.
So the name of the game in SEO is to make it so when the keywords that relate to your business are typed into the search engine of a person’s computer your site will be as close as possible to the first page of all the pages that come up. Page one is optimal.
Now here's the catch, competition for the main keyword (restaurant equipment) for the person who has a restaurant equipment site is going to be fierce. Just as it will be for the main keyword or keywords in whatever business you're in. So in many cases SEO efforts may be better focused on secondary keywords where the competition is low
So now you're probably wondering how you compete. All this SEO stuff is good and fine and you get it but what you need to know now is how to throw some good punches once you enter the competition.
The answer is it turns out that SEO is a little bit of art, a little bit of science, a little bit of psychology and the little bit of online business entrepreneurialism all mixed up together.
