You’ve heard the term and you’ve heard it’s essential to your online presence; so what is it? SEO stands for “Search Engine Optimization,” and is utilized to make the website for your business, blog, restaurant, book, etc., show up before your competition’s wesbite when someone uses Google or another search engine. SEO encompasses the organic or “free” traffic to your website from a search platform and is focused on your ranking.  Sounds like it would be easy, right?

SEO is not so simple and takes careful strategic planning and implementation by someone who really knows what they’re doing.  To improve your rankings with search engines, such as Google, Bing, or Yahoo, you have to meet certain algorithm criteria.  There are internal (behind the scenes of your website) and external (off your website) types of SEO, both being important.  Adding blogs, videos, keywords, or other internal SEO to your website keeps your website’s content current, which is important in that algorithm since search engines don’t want to put outdated and irrelevant websites first in their rankings.  External SEO, such as your social media pages or referral traffic from other websites, also play a role in your rankings because your reputation isn’t something that only you control (since you control your website content).

The word “content” has been thrown around quite a few times in this article already and here’s why: content is EVERYTHING! You have to give your viewers something exciting to read or look at to keep them engaged on your website for more than just a few seconds.  Being unique, and writing your content in a language that your consumer is speaking will keep your rankings higher. Contact 101 Management today for a free SEO consultation!

This video, from www.searchengineland.com, can help put SEO into a visual perspective for you: