Understanding SEO
So what’s the big deal of being at the top of Google Search result? Well according to Marketing Profs, a website with the first position in Google results receives 33% of the search traffic for a keyword or phrase, compared with 18% for the second position.
That should be enough reason for any brand to hire SEO specialists to help them drive their name to the top.
I think a great place to start is with Google Analytics. This service provides powerful digital analytics for anyone with a web presence --- and yes ANYONE-- large or small. Did I mention that it’s free?
Who benefits from Google Analytics?
Executives of companies, like Joe the Plumber, can learn which marketing initiatives are most effective, accurate website traffic patterns and trends, and which customer and customer segments are most valuable. This means that Joe can now put his use money where it works. Instead of spending money on newspaper ads he can now spend it where he has a bigger audience.
And if Joe were to hire a marketing professional, they could see where visitors come from and what they do one the site. They would also see how the website converts more visitors into customers. This is great for Joe; he wants his customers to schedule appointments! And it is great for the marketing professional because he or she will still have a job.
If the marketing developer suggested to Joe that they should hire a content developer, they too would benefit from Google Analytics. They would be able to see where people leave the site, which pages retain visitors the longest, and what search terms people use to find the site.
Google Analytics can be used to track multiple websites, blogs, Facebook, MySpace, and RSS feeds.
Google provides lots of valuable information in Google Webmaster tools, so it is very important to monitor it and make any relevant changes. Making sure that every issue is resolved is crucial because it can help drive traffic to a website. I would recommend anyone to use these tools. You can tidy up your sitelinks, resolve html errors, resolve any server errors, implement geographic targeting, and remove bad links.
How to Improve SEO
If you have a blog, it is advised that you spend much of the time creating great content so that in return Google will reward you by placing your blog post high in Google Search results. But how does one do this?
Start off by tweaking your page title. For example, instead of me using my name, I added photography to the end. A page title is called a meta tag. It is not visible on the page but read by Google.
This might be a surprise, but if you upload your content on Slideshare, Google will also reward you. I wonder if this is true if you use Prezi.
The next thing you can do is optimize your images. I do this all the time at work. Images should include a name, title, alt tag, image size, and caption. This is crucial because when Google crawls your website they will be able to see all this information.
Don’t forget to post on Google+ too! Google loves it when you use their social network to share content.
What have you been using to optimize your blog?
Why do you think content is king?
