SEO is the ongoing process of ranking a website in the search engines based on a set of given keywords. Also known as search engine optimization, SEO can take a great deal of time and patience to yield the results you are after. But, once you achieve the rankings you will have something promoting your website 24/7 while you play or work on the other parts of your business. And, it can promote in anytime zone in the world for you. It is a very powerful form of marketing as well. It is targeted and brings the prospects to you rather than you having to go out and look for customers.
The lifeblood of any SEO campaign is keywords. Keywords and phrases are the terms people type into the search engines when they are looking for something. If someone is looking for a specific answer to something and your website pops up in the results then you have a good chance of getting a visitor and making a sale. So, that means you need to think like your c
ustomers to get that initial batch of keywords to attempt to rank on.
Sit down and come up with a list of words that are related to your business, product or service. You will want to think like a customer. If you are florist your customers may search for types of flowers like roses or tulips. Or, they may search for flowers for specific events like weddings, anniversaries, funerals or other events. Try to come up with a list of 20 words. Then build that list by adding prefixes and suffixes to those words. Going back to the florist example, you can search for something like “best flowers for wedding” or “affordable florist in Vegas”. Here you are adding buying words and geographic locations. These are known as long-tailed keywords. The search volume is not as high on these phrases, but the impact is greater.
The idea is to find keywords that are getting a good amount of search volume, but do not have low competition. This low hanging fruit is a good place to start because you can start seeing results faster. Then after traffic starts funneling in, you can start going after more competitive terms that have even greater search volume. However, if you are ranking on these long-tailed words you are probably going to be in good shape. If someone is looking for something generic like “florist” then they could be looking on how to be a florist, for example. But, if they are searching for “affordable florist in Vegas” they are looking to buy.
SEO is a powerful form of marketing that any business should consider in their advertising arsenal. It puts them in the driver seat regarding their marketing dollars. Where traditional forms of advertising use a wide net to snag a few customers, SEO baits customers into finding you and your services. And, many times they will be coming to your website looking for answers to a specific problem. If you are providing a service they need at the moment, the buying cycle has just been significantly reduced.
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Related searches: Search Engines, Seo, Seo, Search Volume, Search engine optimization, Web search engine, Google, Business, Marketing, Keywords, Website, Keyword research,
Image credits:
English: The three biggest web search engines (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
English: This image shows you various ways of searching search engines for keywords of your choice. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
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