The Basics of SEO for Online Marketing

No search engine marketing campaign is complete without an SEO strategy. Researchers estimate that six out of seven search engine referrals come from organic results rather than paid listings. Find out how to place your site where eighty-five percent of your potential customers will see it.

The classic three criteria for a successful business are location, location, and location. On the web, the optimal location for a business is within the top three positions on a Google search result page. Getting there is not as simple as signing a lease, however--search engines use a complex algorithm to determine which results are most relevant to the users search terms, and by extension, which site is most worthy of the coveted top-ranked spots.

Search Engine Marketing Strategies
The good news: your business Web presence is not entirely at the mercy of the Google algorithm. Search engine marketing experts have developed a set of best practices for ensuring a sites visibility to the search engine. Optimizing a site for search entails strategizing the content and the site design to achieve greater relevance to a users search term, as defined by the algorithms ranking system. Some of the factors that search engines use to define a Web sites rank include:

• Keyword frequency
• Meta tags
• Headings
• Links
• Site structure

SEO Services for Online Marketing
In order to keep pace with increasingly sophisticated algorithms, search engine optimization has evolved into a complex art form. SEO and SEM services help companies optimize their Web presence by targeting the most relevant search terms and optimizing the site to capture traffic on those terms. Specifically, optimizing a site for search involves:

1. Keyword Research. Its not always clear which keywords and phrases are most likely to lead customers to a particular site. Search engine marketing experts have the technical tools and the experience to identify the optimal keywords on which to base a clients online marketing strategy.
2. Content Optimization. An SEO service can retool the content on a clients website to leverage the targeted keywords and phrases.
3. Link Building. Recruiting other websites to link to a client site boosts search engine rankings. In addition, SEO services produce content such as press releases and articles, and place this linked content on other sites.
4. Monitor and Adjust Keywords. Like a paid online marketing campaign, site optimization is an ongoing process. SEO consultants track results and adjust content and keywords accordingly.

Search engine optimization is a crucial component of online marketing. Research consistently demonstrates that users pay more attention to organic search results--the sites deemed most relevant by the search engine--than to paid, or sponsored, results. Jupiter Research found that organic algorithmic results account for six out of seven commercial search referrals. If your business online marketing strategy is dominated by paid listings, an SEO consultant can help you reach out to the eighty-five percent of potential customers youve been missing.

Sources
The New York Times
Search Engine Watch