Search Engine Optimization - How it Can Benefit Your Bottom Line
In today’s marketplace, the Internet has become an important tool for sales and communications. Most businesses have websites that serve a variety of functions. They provide information about the company and its products, collect information about customers and prospects, introduce the company to new markets, and make sales.
Websites exist only in cyberspace. A company’s website is only visible when a consumer accesses it on his or her computer. If consumers aren’t finding and reading a company’s website-if the eyeballs aren’t on the screen-then the message is going nowhere.
How do consumers find websites? Prospects generally use a search engine such as Yahoo or Google. They instruct the search engine to display web sites that meet certain criteria, and they pick through the ones that interest them.
How is a website located by a search engine?
If you sell tulips, you want everyone in your community to come to you for tulips. You want your website to appear when a consumer searches for tulips.
Here’s how search engines find your website. Periodically-every few months, weeks, or even days-the search engine’s computers read the pages of your website. The information is recorded, and used when someone does a search. So, when a customer types in “tulips,” the search engine remembers that your website had the word “tulips” and your website is displayed.
The programs that read web pages have been given a descriptive name-”spiders.” Periodically, the spiders crawl across your web pages and read your content. Then they report back what they have learned.
Which websites get displayed after a search?
Let’s say you are a florist in Cincinnati, Ohio, and you specialize in ViridiFlora tulips.
If you go online and search for “tulips,” you’ll see about 15 million results. This is discouraging. No customer is going to look at 15 million websites to find yours.
Try to add your specialty. If you search for “ViridiFlora tulips,” you get 9,560 results. Better, but still too many for a consumer to sift through. You need to get more specific.
Now add your location. If you search for “ViridiFlora tulips Cincinnati,” you get 137 results. Much better! Now you have a good chance of competing for consumers’ eyeballs-and their sales.
How do I make sure the spiders get the right information?
Spiders cannot see images. You can have photos of ViridiFlora tulips on your website, but the spiders will not see them. Spiders only read text.
This means that your text is critical. Your text must be “search engine optimized.”
What is “search engine optimized (SEO)?”
Your text must contain “key words” or “key phrases” that describe your business or product. They must be an integral part of the text. They cannot be listed or run together in an obviously contrived way. “Tulips” is a key word. “ViridiFlora tulips in Cincinnati” is a key phrase.
Why can’t I simply repeat my keywords over and over?
Because your website may be rejected by search engines. Google, for example, reserves the right to omit your website if it thinks you are trying to play unfairly. If you post a page that says, “ViridiFlora tulips in Cincinnati, we sell ViridiFlora tulips only, the best ViridiFlora tulips in Cincinnati…” you run the risk of being banned by Google. Search engine spiders want genuine content, not contrived nonsense designed only to get your website a higher ranking.
SEO copywriting: carefully crafted to maximize your visibility
Your website text needs to be carefully written to include critical key words or key phrases, but to also read naturally and be informative. Your customers want to read copy that is engaging and stimulating. Search engine spiders want to read copy that gives them specific criteria that they can use when customers search for your site. Effective SEO copywriting does both.
