Monday, November 12, 2007
SEO Basics for Beginners
I have had some questions lately about SEO including – 1) What is SEO? and 2) How does it all work?. So this months blog post is about answering these two questions.
So here goes…
What is SEO
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation and it is the process of creating and improving a website so that it will rank high in the search engines (for example, rank higher in Google). This in turn therefore helps your potential customers or clients find your website.
How does SEO work
The way SEO works is that the search engines such as Google, Yahoo, etc all send out ‘spiders’ (these are computer programs that prowl the internet looking for publicly accessible resources that can be added to a database) that collects information so the search engines can rank the website and list it whenever someone searches for information about a particular topic.
The position where a website is listed by a search engine for a particular keyword or topic searched on by a user/prospect is called its ‘Ranking’. The ranking is important because websites listed on the first page of a set of results (usually the top 10 listings depending on the settings used) has far more chance of being seen and clicked on (visited) than the lower ranked websites listed further down.
That is, the higher your search engine ranking for a particular topic, the more ‘traffic’ (clicks by visitors) you would expect to get. And in internet marketing this traffic (combined with good copy/content on your website) usually converts to more sales and therefore more profit.
The magic number
A great tip to keep in mind when doing your market research on a niche is - as a general rule of thumb the magic number in internet marketing is 200.
This means that for every 200 people clicking/visiting your site, you would usually expect to make 1 sale.
Now this of course depends on a lot of different variables such as the market itself and the quality of your sales copy/website content, etc … but when doing your research to see if your niche market is a viable one, then using these numbers (i.e. 1 sale for every 200 visits) is a very good base to use.
So for example – let’s say you want to get 1 sale a day for a particular product or service to remain viable in business. If this was the case then you will need to be confident that you can generate/attract about 200 visitors a day to your website to make that 1 sale.
I am talking here of course only about ‘on-line sales’, you being the smart business owner you are, will also have lot’s of other marketing strategies, including ‘off-line’ strategies for attracting sales.
Does this mean then if your website does not attract 200 visitors a day that it would not be working well. In a word, NO definitely not.
In the example above, I am only talking about doing initial market research where the whole sales process relies on ‘on-line’ sales for a particular product or service (e.g. an affiliate marketer selling a product on-line). In that case the numbers I have given above are the ones that should be used as a good starter when researching and assessing a niche market before deciding to put a lot of money and energy into that niche.
If this all sounds complicated don’t worry, I suggest you stop and then re-read what has been written above again and I am sure it will all start to make much more sense.
Organic Vs Sponsored search results.
So I am sure you can now see the importance of generating ‘traffic’ to your website and the role SEO plays in this.
An important point I need to make though before continuing – SEO is important for your ranking in what is called the ‘organic’ search results.
Let me explain. In the picture below, the websites listed by Google for the search term ‘Internet marketing’ on the right hand side and also at the top of the page highlighted in yellow are what is called ‘Sponsored Links’. To get onto this list customers Pay for the listing and these lists are Not the lists I am referring to with SEO.
How you obtain a sponsored link is outside the scope of this blog post, however if there is enough interest in this subject I will put up a future post on the topic.
SEO is about improving your ranking in what is called the ‘Organic’ search listing which is Free, and in the example below are the ones listed on the left hand side but below the 3 sponsored sites highlighted in yellow.
So based on the search term ‘Internet marketing’ the Number one site in the organic search area below is this one – “Internet marketing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaInternet marketing, also referred to … en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_marketing”.
Keywords
I want to mention one more important concept used in SEO - ‘Keywords’. Keywords are very important in SEO and put simply they are the words that a search engine user (e.g. one of your prospects/customers) might use to find information on a topic and the relevant webpages containing that information.
So in the example above the keywords were ‘Internet marketing’.
Or put another way, keywords are the words that a search engine searches on as entered by the user of the search engine.
I think that this is a good place to stop on this post as there is probably plenty of information to absorb for the moment, especially if this is your first exposure to the world of SEO.
What’s next?
So in next months post I will discuss in more detail how you actually perform SEO on your website with the objective being to obtain a better ranking in the search engines and hence more traffic to your website.
As a taste though on what I will discuss here are the 4 basic steps to SEO resulting in better search engine rankings:-
Step 1. - Choosing the right keywords
Step 2. - Your URL and Title Tag
Step 3. - H1 Tags and Keyword Density
Step 4. - Links, Links and More Links.
If this sounds complicated don’t worry, I will explain it all step by step’ next month.
So until next time I wish you every success with your business.
Kev
http://www.biztoolz.com.au/
So here goes…
What is SEO
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation and it is the process of creating and improving a website so that it will rank high in the search engines (for example, rank higher in Google). This in turn therefore helps your potential customers or clients find your website.
How does SEO work
The way SEO works is that the search engines such as Google, Yahoo, etc all send out ‘spiders’ (these are computer programs that prowl the internet looking for publicly accessible resources that can be added to a database) that collects information so the search engines can rank the website and list it whenever someone searches for information about a particular topic.
The position where a website is listed by a search engine for a particular keyword or topic searched on by a user/prospect is called its ‘Ranking’. The ranking is important because websites listed on the first page of a set of results (usually the top 10 listings depending on the settings used) has far more chance of being seen and clicked on (visited) than the lower ranked websites listed further down.
That is, the higher your search engine ranking for a particular topic, the more ‘traffic’ (clicks by visitors) you would expect to get. And in internet marketing this traffic (combined with good copy/content on your website) usually converts to more sales and therefore more profit.
The magic number
A great tip to keep in mind when doing your market research on a niche is - as a general rule of thumb the magic number in internet marketing is 200.
This means that for every 200 people clicking/visiting your site, you would usually expect to make 1 sale.
Now this of course depends on a lot of different variables such as the market itself and the quality of your sales copy/website content, etc … but when doing your research to see if your niche market is a viable one, then using these numbers (i.e. 1 sale for every 200 visits) is a very good base to use.
So for example – let’s say you want to get 1 sale a day for a particular product or service to remain viable in business. If this was the case then you will need to be confident that you can generate/attract about 200 visitors a day to your website to make that 1 sale.
I am talking here of course only about ‘on-line sales’, you being the smart business owner you are, will also have lot’s of other marketing strategies, including ‘off-line’ strategies for attracting sales.
Does this mean then if your website does not attract 200 visitors a day that it would not be working well. In a word, NO definitely not.
In the example above, I am only talking about doing initial market research where the whole sales process relies on ‘on-line’ sales for a particular product or service (e.g. an affiliate marketer selling a product on-line). In that case the numbers I have given above are the ones that should be used as a good starter when researching and assessing a niche market before deciding to put a lot of money and energy into that niche.
If this all sounds complicated don’t worry, I suggest you stop and then re-read what has been written above again and I am sure it will all start to make much more sense.
Organic Vs Sponsored search results.
So I am sure you can now see the importance of generating ‘traffic’ to your website and the role SEO plays in this.
An important point I need to make though before continuing – SEO is important for your ranking in what is called the ‘organic’ search results.
Let me explain. In the picture below, the websites listed by Google for the search term ‘Internet marketing’ on the right hand side and also at the top of the page highlighted in yellow are what is called ‘Sponsored Links’. To get onto this list customers Pay for the listing and these lists are Not the lists I am referring to with SEO.
How you obtain a sponsored link is outside the scope of this blog post, however if there is enough interest in this subject I will put up a future post on the topic.
SEO is about improving your ranking in what is called the ‘Organic’ search listing which is Free, and in the example below are the ones listed on the left hand side but below the 3 sponsored sites highlighted in yellow.
So based on the search term ‘Internet marketing’ the Number one site in the organic search area below is this one – “Internet marketing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaInternet marketing, also referred to … en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_marketing”.
Keywords
I want to mention one more important concept used in SEO - ‘Keywords’. Keywords are very important in SEO and put simply they are the words that a search engine user (e.g. one of your prospects/customers) might use to find information on a topic and the relevant webpages containing that information.
So in the example above the keywords were ‘Internet marketing’.
Or put another way, keywords are the words that a search engine searches on as entered by the user of the search engine.
I think that this is a good place to stop on this post as there is probably plenty of information to absorb for the moment, especially if this is your first exposure to the world of SEO.
What’s next?
So in next months post I will discuss in more detail how you actually perform SEO on your website with the objective being to obtain a better ranking in the search engines and hence more traffic to your website.
As a taste though on what I will discuss here are the 4 basic steps to SEO resulting in better search engine rankings:-
Step 1. - Choosing the right keywords
Step 2. - Your URL and Title Tag
Step 3. - H1 Tags and Keyword Density
Step 4. - Links, Links and More Links.
If this sounds complicated don’t worry, I will explain it all step by step’ next month.
So until next time I wish you every success with your business.
Kev
http://www.biztoolz.com.au/
Labels: marketing on internet
