Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Explained
Pittsburgh SEO, What Exactly Is It?
SEO stands for “Search Engine Optimization.” This is sort of a catch-all term for a set of related strategies or efforts that collectively increase the visibility of a website or individual web pages in search engine results. These search engine optimization (SEO) efforts can drive more traffic and customers to your website.
Good or bad search engine optimization can mean the difference between a successful e-commerce site and a failed business.
Why are search engine rankings so crucial to your survival?
The answer revolves around two simple facts:
1. Most people will have no idea that your website even exists unless you’ve “optimized” it in some way for the major search engines like Google, Yahoo, & Bing.
2. Search engines are a primary method of finding products, services, and websites related to the needs & interests of web consumers.
If you can get your website to appear higher in search results, you can greatly increase your web traffic & in turn, your profitability.
How Do Search Engines Work? (From A User Perspective)
A computer user types in a search term (also known as keywords) that describes what they are trying to find. The search engine then displays a list of all related websites, including a link to each site, ranked in order of “relevance.” The web surfer clicks on one of those links, and is whisked away to that website… Most of us are familiar with this experience and use search engines in this manner on a daily basis.
Obviously, you want your own website to show up in the list of results for the keywords that best describe your business or offerings. But just getting onto the list of search results isn’t enough. Search engines tend to bring up thousands, even millions of results, for any given search term or keyword. Just knowing that your website needs to be high in the results page rankings isn’t enough to get you there, it’s a little more complicated than that… Figuring out exactly which keywords you need to focus your time and energy upon is the perilous first step into your journey for search engine love.
The search results are displayed in a ranked list that can go on for tens or hundreds of pages or more. A potential customer will certainly look at the first page of search results, possibly the second and third if they’re very motivated to find something specific, but very very few will look any further. If your website comes up on the fourth page of results or lower, that’s only slightly better than not being there at all, because very few potential customers will ever see it.
You can probably guess that the search engine optimized websites appearing at the top of page one of the near-endless list of results are hoarding up the vast majority of your potential customers!
Some studies have suggested that positions ranked in the top 5 account for 80% or more of all the clicks related to your search terminology.
It’s time to let everyone know you have something “relevant” to offer…
The relationship between position & traffic is simple:
The higher you move in the list of Search Engine Results Page Rankings (SERPS) the more traffic you’ll get.
Although the relationship is simple, the process of climbing the rankings can get a little hairy if you’re new to the game.
What Does Pittsburgh SEO Do?
The goal of search engine optimization is to move your site to the top search results for your related keywords, because that’s where your cash-wielding customers are waiting to meet you.
If you can break into the first three pages of search results, you can reach a much larger pool of potential customers.
Generally, most Pittsburgh SEO campaigns target the “Big Three” search engines which are Google, Yahoo!, and Bing. Although there are hundreds of English-language search engines on the internet, the “Big Three” account for over 90% of all web searches. If you expand your search engine optimization to include two additional search engines, Ask and AOL, that number goes up to over 98%. In other words, don’t waste time with the small fries.
You may find it easier to climb the rankings on some of these lesser known search engines but you’ll quickly realize it’s a fruitless waste of time due to the fractionally lower volume of searches.
There are many SEO strategies, but one of the most reliable tactics is to carefully choose certain keywords, and then craft your entire website’s text based content around those keywords. The number of times your keywords appear within your website’s text is known as “keyword density” and it’s an important factor “The Big Three,” who rank you in their search results based on several known and unknown factors, take into serious consideration.
You’ll often hear people referring to the “algorithm.” Search engines use advanced algorithms to calculate rankings. The exact variables along with their corresponding weights are unknown but SEO experts have narrowed it down quite a bit. Any search engine “expert” will tell you that on-page SEO factors include navigation, keyword density, internal links, and more. If you come across a search engine optimization “expert” who claims to know the exact algorithm hide your wallet and run!
Link building is the main off-page SEO factor you’ll want to focus your attention upon initially. Avoid the link farms, link exchanges, and offers to buy links in bulk, as well as anyone who suggests any of these methods. Quality links from related sites with targeted anchor text take time, effort, and sometimes capital to acquire. However, the long-term benefit of taking your time and building quality backlinks far outweighs the short term frustrations of hunting down those quality links one by one.
Ethical and relevant SEO makes the web a better place, and it allows you to relax and kick it into “maintenance mode” once you get to your desired search engines results page ranking. Anyone who gets there the quick, easy, and “blackhat” way won’t be there for long. Google especially is known to investigate websites with human reviewers. Sites that climb the rankings faster by resorting to unethical “blackhat” methods almost always get “blacklisted,” which means all of their pages are removed from the results (ouch).
Additional factors ranging in importance from low to extremely high include incoming links, the age of your website, the actual design (or usability) of your website, how frequently new content is added, the presence of a sitemap, error pages, and many, many more.
Keep in mind that your competitors are using search engine optimization techniques of their own. Some are playing by the rules and some are probably taking shortcuts. Take your time and do it right or hire someone who can, so when you get into a coveted first page position you can stay there and enjoy the rewards.
Contact ProFromGo today for a free no-hassle consultation and website analysis by calling (412) 530-5027 or by visiting our Pittsburgh SEO Services page.
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