SEO 101: An Introduction
It can be downright confusing when it comes to all the different acronyms which are being introduced in the internet. One of the most common acronyms that you will stumble upon nowadays is SEO which stands for Search Engine Optimization; this is a tool that website owners and marketers can use in making their website search engine friendly.
If you are new to the SEO game, the different terminologies will be a source of great confusion for you. Read along and get to know the different terms when it comes to SEO, how it works and what are the different benefits that you can get from it.
SEO terms
Affiliate Marketing – happens when an advertiser will pay his affiliate to generate traffic to his site
B2B – Business to Business; a marketing strategy which is a business transaction between businesses
B2C – Business to Consumer; a marketing strategy which is a direct business transaction from the business to end-users
Black Hat SEO – using unaccepted SEO methods in order to have increased website ranking and traffic
Cloaking – method which is done by spammers; this is where a different website is shown to the search engine spider
CPC – Cost per Click; method of measuring expense when it comes to web traffic
CTR – Click through Rate; method of measuring the success of an online advertising campaign. Formula for CTR is dividing the total number of users who clicked on the ad over the number of times that the ad was shown.
Keyword Density – Measures how often a group of keywords or phrases appear on a web page
PPC – Pay per Click. Method of advertising in which the advertiser will pay for the ad if it is clicked by a user
SEM – Search Engine Marketing; Way of marketing websites through the use of search engines
SEO – Search Engine Optimization; Act of developing or changing a website so that it will rank higher in search engines
SEO Processes – There are a lot of SEO Processes depending on how in-depth you want it to be. Some of the basic processes include keyword research, on-page optimization, off-page optimization and keeping track of your rankings.
White Hat SEO – opposite of black hat SEO; use of acceptable techniques in generating more traffic for your site and having higher rankings.
How SEO works
Most search engines use spiders, which is actually a program that crawls all over the internet, following links and traveling from one site to another. What it does is that it records what the site is about and indexes the website in the database of the search engine. If a person uses a search engine to search for specific keywords, the spider will use an algorithm which will match the results to the most relevant sites on the database.
In the results page, there are two types of results which are organic links and sponsored links. If you want to have your website rank higher in the organic results, this is when SEO will come to play.
To give you a look on how to make your website search engine friendly, you have to know what search engines look for in matching sites to the keywords that their users are typing. The first and most important factor is for the site to have a lot of unique and original content. Search engines would also prefer to give higher rankings to sites which are easy to navigate. Other considerations are organized sites which have links to relevant and more popular sites and sites which are updated on a regular basis. If your site has all these qualifications, then congratulations! You have a search engine friendly site.
Modern search engines also take a look at other “off page” factors - such as backlinks (links from other sites to your site), social media (bookmarks and links from sites such as del.icio.us and digg).
Advantages of SEO
- Cheap and affordable compared to other marketing tools
Most marketers and website owners would choose to employ PPC in order to generate more traffic for their site. They do not realize that if their site is optimized in the first place then they will spend less time and money in paying PPC service providers.
- Increasing traffic to your site
In order to have an optimized site, you must have at least 200 words which have high keyword density and of course, the title should also have the keywords. Another way to increase your ranking is to provide links to popular and relevant sites. This will surely increase the traffic in your website.
- Higher profitability
If you have a website which is focused on driving transactions or leads, increasing qualified traffic in your site will definitely translate to more profit for you. Alternatively, take a look at your current spending for PPC ads. Through SEO, you can get the same leads (or better quality leads) for free on an ongoing basis.
- Increased brand visibility, effective promotion and accessibility
Since a lot of people are using the internet on a daily basis, your products and services will have increased brand visibility and accessibility. It is also an effective promotional tool because it is cost-effective because the benefits will definitely outweigh the costs.
As a last note, you can never have too much information when it comes to SEO. Before you launch an SEO campaign for your site, educate yourself and read all materials about SEO extensively, provided that they are from credible sources. After this, you will be all set to get SEOed.
