If you have a website and you want it to be found on the first page of all the major search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing you need to optimize your website. Optimizing your website will play an important role in your search engine position, which in return will determine how much traffic your website will be getting.
It is important to note that optimizing your website is an ongoing endeavor. It is not something that you do once and forget about it. No, optimizing a website is a full-time job of its own, especially if you want to be found on the first page of all the search engine results.
A lot of times business owners make the mistake of thinking once their website is done, that it will generate traffic on its own. They think that once their website is live and online, that their website will automatically get good search engine position. This is further from the truth, for the only way that your website can be found on the web without spending a fortune on banner advertising or pay per click, is through search engine optimization.
Search Engine Optimization is not rocket science, but it is not something that you do overnight either. It takes time and a lot of patience. If you are a computer savvy, you can do your website’s optimization yourself. And if you don’t want to do it, or that you don’t have the time to obligate to it, you can always hire a professional to do the work for you.
But be careful of those search engine optimization companies that make false promises of getting your website on top of the search engines within a week. Because those kinds of companies do a thing called BLACK HAT SEO, which means they do something that are against the search engines’ policies. Their work consists of things that meant to trick the search engines. This might work for a short term, but sooner or later the search engines will catch up to this, and when they do, your website might get ban from ever appearing from the search results altogether.
Below are some basic search engine optimizations that you can apply to your website.
1. Page Description – make sure you have a proper description on your website’s meta tags. This helps the search engines to know what your website is all about so that they can index your website and match it to people who are doing a search related to your website.
2. Keywords – use all the appropriate keywords that you think that relates to your website. Use the free Google service called keyword suggestion tool. This tool will give you different variations of keywords that you can use for your website.
3. Content – for maximum effect try to incorporate some of the keywords into your website’s content. But don’t repeat the keywords over and over, for this will make it look like you’re spamming the search engines. Keep your website visitor in mind when writing content, don’t use the keyword in the sentence just because you have it in your meta tags.
4. Google Analytics – this one is not really part of the search engine optimization process per se, but this is a great tool to help you keep track of your website’s progress. This tool will show you how many visitors you’re getting on a day to day basis, what keywords they use and which search engine they use to get to your website.
In the end whether you decide to do the optimization of your website yourself, or if you want to hire a SEO expert, keep in mind that ranking higher on the search engines is just the first step towards your website’s success. The other part is making sure that your website is user-friendly to your website visitors. And when your website can be found on the first page of the search engines and at the same time can provide a positive experience to your user, you have a better chance of converting those visitors into leads.
