Wednesday, 3 October 2012

Search Engine Optimization

What is Search Engine Optimization?

Basically, Search Engine Optimization, or “SEO” is the process of bringing a website higher in the ranks of a search engine.  When trying to optimize a webpage for search engines, what one is essentially doing is trying to make the site more visible and easy to find for people looking for content related to your subject matter.


How do you improve your rank on Google, Bing, and other search engines?

There are many ways in which you can improve your ranks, but it can be very complex.  So complex, in fact, companies now hire people to work full time on improving their business’ rank.

Two great ways that one can improve their search engine ranks are using the right keywords and having relevant, quality content which will lead to having backlinks.  These are basically what SEO is all about, when looked at in the simplest sense.

Keywords involve choosing relevant words and phrases to base your optimization around.  These will be the basis for your URL, tags, and other words which will be places in the coding of the website, but also in the content.  The more specific and niche the keywords are the better chance someone who is looking for your specific content will be able to find it.  If one uses keywords which are too general or generic your content could be lost among the millions of sites on the internet.

There are sites such as http://www.seotipsy.com/ that serve as tools to give companies ideas and advice for improving their SEO rankings.

Some people believe that the most important thing to ranking high on search engines is to generate relevant content.  I agree with this idea, because it leads to the direct traffic, plus it can lead to people linking others to your website.  When others place a link to your website on another website it is called a backlink, and it is a useful way to get your website ranked higher.

Though SEO is a great way to get your website noticed, it is an ever changing game, and you always have to be working on keeping your rank up.  Your website can drop from the first hit on a search engine to several pages deep in a matter of minutes.  Staying number one is not easy, but it is definitely necessary if you wish to have a successful business with a strong internet presence.

Here is a short video about the basics of SEO: 


I hope you enjoyed my blog, thanks for reading.


Victoria Le Page
October 3, 2012

16 comments:

  1. Search Engine Optimization is a great tool for businesses to use. With the technology today, customers are always on the internet, and generally they use a search engine to find what they are looking for. Using relevant and keywords about your product/service is a very effective way to bring in customers, as well as assist them in finding your product/service. I actually used google adwords for my co-op this past summer, we got the results from google analytics and it was proven to be effective.

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  2. So badly google is banned in China for some time so I hadn't experienced it for a long time till I got here. In my opinion, Google hasn't ever run into any strong competitors to enlighten its urge just like Apple to Microsoft. Hope it could be a big acceleration for search engine system if it happens in short future.

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    1. What would happen if Google were to be allowed into China. I agree the SEO is an excellent business tool that all companies should look into. However, as the Internet continues to grow and newer companies come into the fold, aren't the search engines going to overpopulate themselves? Business' will have to work twice as hard to get noticed online.

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  3. SEO is an extremely important aspect for businesses in terms of their online presence. because there is millions of websites online, it is tough for smaller ones to break through and gain an audience. SEO allows the site to gain rank and gain an audience. without SEO the website will not gain users and will not help the company succeed. adding key words or phrases that are relevant and searched frequently definitely helps the site gain a following and be seen on the net. good job on the post, it was very thorough.

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  4. The SEO is great for the success of business online. We as users of the internet nearly 90% of the time when looking on google for a answer will click the first one given. SEO is what companies use to be that first ad, article up there.

    Good work

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  5. SEO was probably the best investment my co-op company said they had involved themselves in. Most people don't look past page one or two when trying to find a service or product and without SEO unless you're a huge company you're likely to get lost in the mix.

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  6. I agree SEO is very tricky and is ever growing. There are so many websites and businesses out there today that you are always in competition with someone over that number 1 spot. Those websites that are on the first 2 pages definitly give those sites a direct advantage.

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  7. While SEO is very costly it is an investment worth making. Most people use search engines to decide which company to buy from. If a company is showing up on these searches, it is more likely that it will be chosen over companies that are not showing up.

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  8. As Kaila mentioned, it can be very costly, but also worth the money spent! It is a huge advantage to be seen above others when being searched. The higher you are on that results list the more likely you are to be seen!

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  9. I found your video very helpful and educating. I did not realize that you can create content anywhere on the internet to link back to your website. Most of the work is done off the website itself to link back to the webpage. The more relevant your site and/or video is the more people want to share your links and this in turn will have more people reverting back to your website.

    This can be very powerful, because it says that it is unlimited with the amount of different external linking that link back to your website.

    Moosehead does not seem to have many external links that link back to their website. Some of the key word searches that I tried did not work out very well. I found Moosehead on page 44 of some of my searches where I thought I would for sure find them on page one.

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  10. Extremely important to an online company. Being displayed past page two would mean a great loss for a company that generates a good portion of sales online. Even though it's expensive and competitive, it's definitely worth investing.

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  11. Search engine optimization is certainly a make or break tool for any company looking to increase their online presence, just recently while doing my brand evaluation task for Moosehead beer I noticed that when googling 'Canadian Beer", they were no where to be found, at least not in the first twelve pages, great post on a very important matter in regards to web marketing.

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  12. SEO is utterly crucial for businesses. It helps the organic search based companies compete with the paid search users. Constantly updating your keywords will help maintain and rise your rankings as a good trial and error experience. It would be well served if more companies realized this, it would be highly beneficial for them. Terrific post.

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  13. Thank you so much for the excellent post and video, It definitely served me understand SEO.
    Companies should understand that optimizing content is a very important step to draw traffic from the web. The more updated, interesting and visible the content can be on search engines, the higher the brand exposure will be.

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  14. searching engine is important aspect for market place to keep their web sites visible and SEO keep their web site in the first page so your post make me understand different things about search engine and SEO. nice post

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  15. Another great benefit to SEO is the fact it is "promotion that does not sleep". It provides a company or entreprenuer the ability to still increase traffic, brand awareness, and increase sales even in off hours from work. Great article!

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