With the rapid growth rate of the Internet, it’s no surprise that Internet marketing efforts have expanded as well.
Companies are now outsourcing or hiring entire departments to take advantage of all the expanding marketing opportunities the Internet offers. With this new specialized segment of marketing, a whole new language has developed.
While it’s everyday jargon for the pros, for those who are not in the business, these words and abbreviations may not always make sense. Read on to ensure you aren’t left out in the cold and know how to hold your own in this new advertising and marketing venue.
Search Engine Optimization: How it Works
One of the most commonly used terms in Internet marketing is “SEO,” an acronym for “search engine optimization.”
SEO is, in essence, optimizing a website so when users search for a relevant term, the website shows up on the first page of search engine results. There are many ways of optimizing a site. One of the most well known is incorporating keywords into the content.
What is known as “keyword research” is performed to ensure the best and most efficient words have been implemented when using SEO. The key is to find the keywords that people are using to search for similar products and services, but keywords that aren’t in great competition.
If you choose a keyword that is popular with other companies, your competition is hard, and you’re less likely to get listed on first page results. If you pick a keyword that isn’t popular with companies, but also isn’t used by a large number of searchers, then even if you do get listed on the top, it doesn’t matter that much since not that many people are using that search term.
Experienced Internet marketers know how to take advantage of search engine crawlers because they have a solid understanding of how they work. For instance, a seasoned SEO specialist will make the most out of punctuation, since most search engines don’t include punctuation, such as semi colons, em dashes, periods, or parenthesis, in their searches. Therefore, content can be worded to include SEO without sounding spammy or grammatically incorrect.
Be Careful with your SEO
Many companies, looking solely to drive traffic, will use a single word tens of times within a single paragraph, just so they can be picked up by search engines. These sites may even use phrases that don’t read well or flat out don’t make sense, again, for the sole purpose of site hits. In a nutshell, these spam SEO content sites act as rat traps for internet surfers and other unsuspecting researchers.
Luckily, search engine algorithms are getting smarter and know how to tell which sites offer keyword-rich content and which sites offer just keywords. After all, it’s their job to return the most relevant results to their users.
This is a guest post by blogger Mary, who blogs on a wide variety of topics, from Internet marketing to rat traps.
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Tags: basics of seo, inbound marketing, internet marketing, online marketing, search engine optimization, SEO, social, web development