What is SEO

Search Engine Optimization (or SEO) is the process in which site is organically ranked in the search engines through off-page and on-page optimization. Put simply, an SEO company will attempt to get you the number one spot on Google, Yahoo, and MSN for a certain keyword.

For example, if you sell a product, let’s say widgets, than most likely the keywords you’ll want to optimize for would be “widgets”, “cheap widgets”, “blue widgets”, etc. You’ll want to optimize for these keywords because that’s what customers and shoppers will be typing in on the search engines to look for that product to buy. Through the process of search engine optimization, your website will be ranked on the 1st page of the major search engines. So, when some types in “widgets” ideally your website will be the number one spot on Google.

Now, of course this process is much more complicated than it sounds. Search engines take into account many different factors when deciding how to rank a site. These factors, often called “search engine algorithms”, change constantly and nobody knows exactly what the formula is for getting the 1st spot on a search engine (save the Google masterminds). However, there are proven methods and techniques that SEO specialists have been using for years to consistently get top spots on the major search engines. These include a combination of on-page and off-page optimization.

On-page optimization is the simplest and fastest way to optimize your site, but unfortunately this alone will not get you anywhere near the 1st page. However, it is very important to optimize your content, meta-tags, and linking structure to maximize your results. On-page optimization includes writing the title tags, description tags, and meta-keywords correctly so visitors will click on your listing and the search engines will “know”what your site is about.

Recently, Title-tags have become more important in ranking a site. Title-tags are the words that appear on the top of your browser or the title when you see a list of sites on search engines:

As you can see, it is very important to have keyword optimized title-tags while making them attractive to maximize click throughs on the search engines.

The content on your site must also be optimized for the search engines for maximum results as well. This includes having your main and secondary keywords spread throughout the text at a density of 1-3%. Also, using a method known as LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing), you should include words that are similar (synonyms to your keywords) or on the same subject or group. For example, if you have a site about pasta, you should include words related to pasta such as linguini, spaghetti, etc. If this sounds a little complicated to you, don’t worry, as our guaranteed SEO Packages include optimization of your homepage content.

Description tags and meta-keywords are less important, but they should still be used to maximize results. These include writing a description of your site that only the search engine robots will see. The same is true for the meta-keywords. No human visitors will see this information, but it still carries weight for the search engines.

Off-site optimization is the most important of any SEO campaign. This process mainly involves acquiring links to your website. For example, of a Site B links to your Site A, Google and other search engines see that as a vote of confidence to your site and it increases your popularity. Thus, you site will rank a little higher on the search engines. We only use 1 way links to your site, which is more heavily weighted than reciprocal linking (Site A links to Site B and Site B links back to Site A). Below is a picture to help you visualize reciprocal linking.