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What on earth is<\/i> SEO?<\/h3>\n
SEO is an acronym for Search Engine Optimization<\/i><\/a>, and it pretty much does what it says on the tin. OK, think about all of the times that you\u2019ve looked for something on the web. Let\u2019s say that you\u2019re looking for a bouncy castle for your child\u2019s birthday party, and you live in New York. You open up a search engine, type in \u2018bouncy castles New York\u2019 and click on one of the first links that you see. You haven\u2019t got time to look through them all, have you?<\/p>\n If you\u2019re a bouncy castle business owner, you know that you\u2019re going to get little to no recognition if you\u2019re on the 20th page of Google. It would take a pretty devoted person to look through that many pages for a bouncy castle, so if you\u2019re that far down on a search engine, you\u2019re basically out of the game. Well, maybe you\u2019re not. This is where SEO comes in, and saves the day for all of those page 20 bouncy castle businesses.<\/p>\n The more times that the link to your website is mentioned on other<\/i> websites, the higher it gets ranked on search engines. The more times that you include the keywords that you need to rank higher on these search engines in your webpages, and the webpages of others, the more likely you are to jump up a few places, until you end up pretty close to where you want to be. The higher you end up, the more people visit your website, and the more sales you get. Simple, right?<\/p>\n Well, you\u2019d think so. But SEO<\/a> is still quite a difficult game to play, and if you don\u2019t have original content, or your site looks too spammy, then Google won\u2019t recognize it in their algorithms. Unfortunately, you can\u2019t just write \u2018bouncy castles\u2019 100 times on a blog post and then link your own page in at the bottom (which is pretty annoying). SEO is time-consuming, sometimes expensive, and very easy to get completely wrong, especially as you need to work out the perfect keywords, too.<\/p>\n SEO may be one of those things that you just think that you don\u2019t need. How is all of this link business going to help you out, anyway? However, SEO has a proven track record of increasing traffic<\/a> to websites, and it can boost your customer count by a massive margin. It can seem like a difficult thing to get right, and you may believe that social media is easier (and cheaper), but there are still plenty of people out there using Google for everyday tasks.<\/p>\n You can do a little test here, and put the name of your business into a search engine. You can try a few different alternatives (perhaps do some searches with place names), but have a look at the overall position of your business on the web. It\u2019s best to look at this through a private browser, so that the ranking of your search engine isn\u2019t influenced by the cookies, favorites and search history on your normal browser.<\/p>\n Also type in the service that you provide (you know, \u2018bouncy castles New York\u2019) and see what the deal is. If you\u2019re not on page one, then this means that you\u2019re missing out on over 71%<\/a> of the link clicks, which all happen within this one specific page. That means that your competitors are getting all of this business, that you could be receiving yourself if you were ranking a little higher. Have we convinced you yet? Are you on the SEO bandwagon?<\/p>\n Think about this. Sure, social media is a good marketing tool, but when you see a product in a store that you want, what do you do before you hand over the cash? 9 times out of 10, if it\u2019s a big investment, you do a quick Google search to see how much it costs elsewhere. If your business can come up at the top of this search, and offers a better price, then you\u2019ve got one more customer who has picked your store over your competitors, which is good news.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re interested in SEO, you need to get it right, and this is a process that can take a lot<\/i> of time. If you\u2019re going to smash it when it comes to search engine rankings, you need to learn the tricks of the trade, and these tricks always seem to be changing. It\u2019s annoying, right? But it\u2019s Google\u2019s way of making sure that they avoid spam, and that people aren\u2019t controlling search engines too much. Because of this, you need to become a wizard<\/i> at SEO.<\/p>\n The alternative is to hire an SEO company to do your dirty work, and this is a viable alternative for those who aren\u2019t too tech savvy. From businesses that focus on specific SEO, like those for lawyers featured on BestSEOCompanies.com\u2019s lawyer SEO list<\/a>, to those who generalize and offer SEO services for all types of people, getting in touch with one of these places could be worthwhile, especially if you don\u2019t have time to sit down and work out the complexities of Google.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re going to use a blog on your website to make the most of SEO, then you need to start out by creating some original, engaging content. You should also be creating all of the content for your products, which should be unique, whilst also showcasing a few of the keywords<\/a> that you\u2019ve found out. Repetitive, copied content is not going to do you any favors here, so employ a content writer, or put your writing hat on and do your best DIY job.<\/p>\n Then, you should put in some links to your pages via the means of some anchor text, which should say something about your business. The ol\u2019 \u2018visit site\u2019 or \u2018click here\u2019 won\u2019t really do the job here, and you should try to include something that will help Google to work out what your link is about. If you can get any posts on guest blogs and sites, where you can backlink to your website, then you\u2019ll also be able to boost your traffic by diversifying the sites that you\u2019re featured on.<\/p>\n Yes, one last thing (we promise). If you\u2019re aiming to get your site onto the first page of a search engine, you need to make sure that it\u2019s good<\/i>. A poorly put together website that is crying out for the assistance of a web designer is going to put people off straight away, and the advice here is this. Remember that old business slogan, \u2018dress for the job that you want, not the one that you have\u2019? Well, this kind of applies to your site.<\/p>\n Make your site look<\/i> like it should be on the first page of Google, not the 20th. If you do this, and boost your website a little via SEO, your business website will speak for itself. We\u2019ve all clicked onto a website before, realized that it looks like 2003 Myspace<\/a>, and backed out of there quicker than you can say \u2018please God get a web designer\u2019. Take all elements of your online presence seriously, and you\u2019ll be well on your way to getting the boost that you need.<\/p>\nWhy do I need SEO?<\/h3>\n
![\"content-marketing-seo-tips-traffic\"](\"https:\/\/www.andysowards.com\/blog\/assets\/content-marketing-seo-tips-traffic-1024x749.jpg\")
\nImage Source<\/a><\/em><\/p>\nSounds great, how do I do it?<\/h3>\n
Is there anything else that I need to remember?<\/h3>\n