For years I have talked to people about how I do search engine marketing for a living. Most nod their heads at me and just smile. But there are always the ones who seem to know what I’m talking about and they always mention how they have done some search marketing themselves. As we talk more, I always ask if they focus on SEO or PPC more. They always say SEO and then say that they buy google adwords. I then briefly explain to them the difference between SEO and PPC. After that they usually get bored and walk away. But it brings me to this topic: What is SEO and what is PPC? Today I will talk about SEO and the benefits a website owner will get from it.
As confusing as some people make it seem, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a fairly easy science. It is easy to learn, yet time consuming and somewhat hard to do. That is why so many people try and take shortcuts when it comes to SEO, but that is a discussion for another day. But SEO in general can be summed up in to three key tasks:
- Building a great website
- Using the right keywords on your pages
- Getting the right inbound links to your website.
As simple as that may sound, it isn’t always simple to do and most people don’t use the techniques given. The basic principal is building a website in a way that search engines will be able to find. You need to have the right elements on your page as well as keyword rich content. Knowing what people are looking for and presenting that in the right way on your website is essential. Finally, getting quality links from other websites to your website. A link from another website is basically a validation or a recommendation from other websites. The more recommendations the better in the eyes of search engines.
If you stick to these principles when building your website, you will have no problem getting traffic to your website.