SEO.\u00a0 You have probably seen the letters before, most likely in the glut of emails you may receive from companies offering to rocket your website into the top of the search engine rankings overnight.\u00a0 Though those companies are talking about search engine optimization, they usually fall into that old saying about something that sounds too good to be true.<\/p>\n
Search Engine Optimization is a technique that Internet marketers and consultants use to make a website rank better for certain keyword combinations in the major search engines, primarily Google.\u00a0 For background, a little bit of detail on how search engines work and how they rank pages.\u00a0 This is a very general overview as there is a great deal of research, technology and secrecy involved on the part of the engines themselves.<\/p>\n
Search Engine Rankings<\/strong><\/p>\n The primary goal of a search engine is to return relevant results to the user.\u00a0 Think about the current round of advertising for Bing, where someone is spouting out information that matches the topic, but isn’t really relevant.\u00a0 If you’re searching for IT support in Wichita<\/em>, you are probably looking for a local IT company with consultants and network engineers that can resolve your issues and not a company that simply sells computers and parts.<\/p>\n Google is perhaps the best at the science of relevance.\u00a0 They use a complicated formula, or algorithm, to determine what sites are a relevant match for a particular set of keywords.\u00a0 The search engine sends out a spider<\/em>, which reads a website and tries to determine what the website is about.\u00a0 Google then indexes those results and serves up search results based on their best guess of what is relevant.<\/p>\n Search Engine Optimization<\/strong><\/p>\n SEO, or\u00a0I should\u00a0say good SEO<\/em>,\u00a0is a technique used by Internet marketers to help the search engine determine what their website is about.\u00a0 Call it a helping hand.\u00a0 My best advice about optimization is that it needs to be natural.\u00a0 A website about technology support should have a great deal of content about technology support, using exactly those words.\u00a0 It’s hard for Google to guess what your site is about without seeing those words on your site.\u00a0 Here are some tips about ways to provide the engines with the helping hand they need to show your website to the right people.<\/p>\n Choose Your Keywords<\/strong><\/p>\n Decide what words or phrases you would type in the search box if you expected to find your own site.\u00a0 Ask yourself; what words would my customers use to find my business?<\/p>\n Use Your Keywords in Your Content<\/strong><\/p>\n Content is king.\u00a0 If you think your customers will be searching for hand-crafted widgets<\/em>, talk about hand-crafted widgets.\u00a0 Describe your products with those exact words.\u00a0 How is Google supposed to know that when you talk about thingamajigs<\/em>, you’re actually describing widgets<\/em>?<\/p>\n Big Words are Important Words<\/strong><\/p>\n The search engine’s impression of what words are important on the page are sometimes just what you think is important when you read something.\u00a0 The most important words in this post as you read it are words in bold, or the headlines of articles.\u00a0 Target your keywords in your headers.<\/p>\n Write Naturally, But Keep Keywords in Mind<\/strong><\/p>\n I don’t have a formula for how many times you should repeat the same keyword in your text.\u00a0 Google and other engines will see excessive use of a word as keyword stuffing<\/em> and penalize it.\u00a0 You’ve seen sites where the same words are used over and over again repetitively, making the text seem stilted and unnatural.\u00a0 If you notice it, the search engine will probably notice it as well.<\/p>\n Build Links to Your Website<\/strong><\/p>\n If your website is about technology support and another popular site about the same topic posts a link to yours, Google and the other engines consider that a vote of confidence in your content.\u00a0 Beware of the unscrupulous SEO folks that offer overnight results.\u00a0 They start with a campaign of buying links from other sites to yours.\u00a0 Most engines are on the lookout for this as well.\u00a0 If the site is a natural fit with yours, you can ask for a link.\u00a0 If the webmaster likes your site and content, you just might get it.\u00a0 There are other ways as well to get links.\u00a0 Posting to forums about your subject is a start.\u00a0 Some will let you link to your site in the post.\u00a0 Though forum post links may not have as much clout, they will do double duty; driving traffic from that website as well as giving you a nudge up in the search engines.<\/p>\n Keep Writing New Content<\/strong><\/p>\n Fresh content is better than stale content and Google knows it.\u00a0 I constantly update my site with new information related to IT support and computer consulting, so the engines know it is an active website and therefore may give it more clout as being relevant to the topic.<\/p>\n Hire an Expert<\/strong><\/p>\n Like anything else in business, steer away from anyone offering a deal that seems too good to be true.\u00a0 SEO takes time and there are usually no guarantees of results.\u00a0 If they offer guarantees, they may be using some unethical practices.\u00a0 You may get an immediate bump, but the engines will find it and penalize it.\u00a0 Sometimes this will mean a poor ranking or the worst-case, removal from the results entirely.<\/p>\n There are a lot of things a consultant can do to help raise your rankings naturally and honestly.\u00a0 Here are a few of the steps we take at Proper Technology Solutions that have helped us raise our rankings in the short time our website has been live:<\/p>\n Follow some of the tips above and you should see some results.\u00a0 If you need assistance, feel free to call me at Proper Technology Solutions at (316) 337-5628 or our after-hours line at (316) 210-7112.\u00a0 We can look at your site and come up with some plans to help you succeed.\u00a0 It might be just a consultation with advice and some steps you can take, or you may decide to have us regularly perform some of the steps above.\u00a0 Whatever your business needs, we will be happy to lend a hand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" SEO.\u00a0 You have probably seen the letters before, most likely in the glut of emails you may receive from companies offering to rocket your website into the top of the search engine rankings overnight.\u00a0 Though those companies are talking about … Continue reading \n