One of the best, if not the best long-term methods for generating traffic online is Search Engine Optimization or (SEO). Search engine optimization usually takes a little bit of effort on the front end, but it pays off much bigger in the long run. What exactly does SEO involve and how can it help you?
Search engine optimization is the process of making your website "search engine friendly." Search engines use a number of different methods to gauge whether your website should be ranked highly or not. One of the things that search engines look for are keywords. If you're writing about a particular subject, then they want to see a certain amount of keywords associated with that subject. You don't want to overdo it with the keywords, but you want to put enough of them in there to make a difference
Another factor that makes search engines believe your site is important are the amount of inbound links that you have coming in to your site. The more links you have, the more important the search engines believe your site is. In turn, they will rank your site higher because of it.
Besides these basic ideas, there are a lot of things that you can do to tweak your site in order to make it more search engine friendly. There are so many tips and tricks that it sometimes helps to have a trained SEO professional take care of it for you. So why would you want to mess with SEO in the first place? Why is it so much better than other forms of internet marketing?
One popular method to compare it to is pay-per-click advertising. With pay-per-click you have to pay for every bit of traffic that you get. It will deliver a lot of traffic to your site, but you basically have to sell in order to stay in business. If you hit a dry spot, the cost for all of the clicks keeps on coming. If you ever decide to turn off your pay-per-click campaign, you won't be getting anymore traffic.
With SEO, you put in the work on the front end. At first, you probably won't get any traffic. However, as the search engines start to index you, you'll get more and more traffic. Before long, you've got an avalanche of targeted traffic coming to your site. The best part is that you never have to pay for the traffic. Once you've got everything set up, you just keep getting traffic.
Overall, SEO is one of the most critical components of online marketing. With the power of SEO behind you, your business could be in for a long, successful run.
