If you haven’t heard of SEO, then you’re already at a disadvantage from your competitors. SEO is an acronym for search engine optimization, and it is the prime way to advertise your website across the Internet. Without SEO, your website will stay low on the search engine’s index and may stay well below the first or even second page when users submit search terms.
What is SEO?
When search engines crawl the Internet looking for high quality content, they rank websites and their pages based on the amount of keywords and links that are located on each web page. The search engine crawler will look at elements on the web page such as links, keywords, and the meta tags and description of the site. The best way to keep your website ranked high on the search engine’s index is to tweak these elements to focus on the website’s product and services and target keywords and phrases that search engine users submit.
White Hat and Black Hat Search Engine Optimization
Like hacking, search engine optimization has been given white had and black hat associated titles. A business that is serious about bringing a reputable reputation online wants to ensure that the methods they use for SEO are white hat. White hat SEO methods focus on straight-forward, honest methods that keep page ranks high and use responsible techniques. Black hat methods are popular for fly-by-night websites with little credibility. Black hat methods eventually lead to web sites being banned and blacklisted from the search engines, so as tempting as quick traffic may sound, it can ultimately ruin traffic and leads to a website.
SEO Costs and Performance
Although SEO techniques take longer to get noticed on the Internet, they are more cost effective and affordable for website owners with smaller capital. The top changes on a website that are used to increase traffic are:
- Use keyword specific meta tags
- Use keywords in titles of links
- Bolded fonts targeting keywords
Additionally, to improve traffic and climb the index ladder of the search engines, submitting articles to article directories will improve organic searches. Some tips about article creation and submission to websites:
- Create keyword rich, interesting articles that are readable and optimized for search engines
- Use article directories that use white hat SEO methods
- Article directories with reporting will allow you to keep track of results