Marketing Your Business through Search Engine Optimization

There are a lot of online marketing techniques out there, but one technique that is worth time, work, and some professional help in becoming effective is search engine optimization. Making your business website earn top rankings in search engine results is a sure way to direct traffic, and therefore business, to your business website. Top ranked websites have several things in common. Here are six areas to focus on when working toward marketing your business website through search engine optimization.

1. Key words: Figure out what your market's key words are and what is being searched for. This will take a little bit of research, but if done correctly you can predict shifts in demand in your target niche, respond quickly to changes in market conditions, and produce the product, services and content your customers are actively searching for. There are tools available to help you determine what the key words your target audience is searching for. You then include them in multiple places on your business website.
2. Quality Content:The most important part of including key words or search terms in your business website content, though, is whether your site can actually answer the question searches are looking for. Is the content on your site useful, is it quality? Or is it just a mish-mash of key words? It won't do you any good if your key words have very little to do with what you are selling and the searcher leaves your site after a brief visit. If you think like the people behind the search engines, content is more important. Key words help search engines identify potential content, but related words, unique writing and relevant content are what really help them rank search results. Use your key words to determine what content should be included on your site and you will see your key words used naturally within the content and your rankings will go up.
3. Quality One-way Links to Your Site: Another way search engines measure websites for rankings is the number of one-way links your site receives from others. One-way links to your business website are basically seen by search engines as votes for your site. The more votes a site has (or the more one-way links it has to it) the better potential it has for answering their searcher's queries. The hire the ranking of the sites that are linking to yours, the hire your ranking will be.
4. Submitting Your Site to Online Directories: One way to get quality links to your site is through submitting your business website to online directories. There are hundreds of directories online, so try getting listed with the most popular directories first. Popularity breeds higher search engine rankings.
5. Easy to use, easy to navigate: When a site is easy to use and easy to navigate it encourages sharing, bookmarking, return visits, and links back to it. These in turn signal to search engines that your site is popular, which gives it a higher ranking. No one is going to share or link back to a site that isn't user friendly.
6. Professionally designed and accessible to multiple browsers: Referring back to #5, this is where using a professional designer comes in handy. You want your site to be intuitive and friendly as well as looking professional and meeting your business goals. The better crafted your content and the more accessible your website is the better your search engine ranking will be in the long run.