"SEO stands for search engine optimization. In simple terms, it means the process of improving your site to increase its visibility for relevant searches.
"The better visibility your pages have in search results, the more likely you are to garner attention and attract prospective and existing customers to your business."
(Quote from Search Engine Land)
All this is important because organic traffic is important.
We saw in my other post how organic traffic (website traffic derived from search engines) is the #1 source of traffic to websites.
The thing is most of that traffic comes from the first page (top 10 places) in search engine return pages (SERPs) and there can only be 1 website in each of those 10 places.
Being on page one for the keywords relevant to your business can be the difference between spectacular and mediocre for any online business -- indeed, it can be the difference between success and failure!
I often say that Search Engine Optimization SEO isn't rocket science. And it isn't. But there are three additional things you should know...
1) Anyone Can Do It
There is no license required, but you do want to have some idea of what you are doing. You can break things that will damage your placement in the SERPs and maybe even get you penalized by the search engine, placing you several pages down in the results.
2) A Little Effort Can Go A Long Way
It may surprise you to learn that only a few people actually apply SEO to their websites, even when it comes to big company sites, and fewer still do it well. If you learn and apply just a few good techniques your site can soar in SERP listings.
3) No One Knows
Outside of the search engine companies, no one actually knows the algorithms (formulas) used to calculate the position a website will appear in the SERPs.
These companies keep the factors that go into this a secret so people cannot "game" the system. All the things we know, or think we know, about all this are learned through trial and error.
I am going to cover more things about this in upcoming posts but I want to share what I believe may be the most important single thing you can do for your own SEO efforts. It underpins all of the other things you do.
That one thing is when (the date) you first make your website public on the Internet.
That single factor is probably the most misunderstood of all the factors we know anything about and yet it can be crucial to getting to the top spot in the SERPs.
Let us pretend you and I are doing optimization on our own websites. And let us say we are both gurus on the subject. We know everything that is known by anyone about SEO. No one can do any better a job of it than we can. And we are equals.
Our websites are built exactly the same using all the best techniques, tools, and practices. They are user friendly, fast loading, content rich, and all the other good SEO things we can do.
Now, for the sake of this "pretend" exercise let us say our websites are exactly the same, with the same number of pages, the same number of images, all with alt attributes, and even the same number of words, about different niches of course.
Therefore the SEO value for each of our websites would be exactly the same and they would both be indexed into the same spot -- an impossibility!
So the search engine has to decide which one goes first and which one goes second in the returns.
Let us say we were talking about the 10th and 11th spots -- the bottom spot on page one and the top spot on page two -- not much difference, but a BIG difference in exposure. And exposure definitely counts.
But let us say there is one very small factor that is different between us. I started my website before you did. Not just started it, but I opened it up to the public and, therefore, to search engine indexing, before you did.
Let us even say the we both built our websites on the very same day.
Let us say that I built my site open to the public (and search engines) right from the beginning.
But, let us also say you kept your website development off the 'net all together, or hidden behind an Under Construction, or a Coming Soon, page until you were satisfied that it was just right.
There was nothing about your website accessible to index during the build phase.
OK, now guess which website, yours or mine, gets that spot on the first page.
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I love that you pointed out this fact: “no one, outside of the search engine companies, actually knows the algorithms (formulas) used to calculate the position a website”. I also learned something new. I didn’t realize that when your site goes live can factor into your placement. I look forward to reading more.