You want people to find your website when they use search engines, right? And you want to come up on that coveted first page or, better yet, near the top of the first page, right? While SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, isn’t a magic pill that can make that happen, it’s certainly a shot of B12 that will boost your website’s metabolism and energy when it comes to the search engines.
So what is SEO? For starters, it’s not a magic pill. There are internet marketers, social media experts, and other fine folks who are trying to get their hands on your wallet that want you to believe it’s magic and that only a few wizards, themselves notably among them, are capable of pulling SEO out of a hat. As you'll see below, it's simply a combination of creating content with strategically selected words and getting other people to recognize and share your content.
In the late 1990s I set up a website for a local day spa. At the time, they didn’t want a “wordy” website. They wanted something that just listed prices and showed photos of their beautiful spa (and it was, they sunk a lot of money into atmosphere.) This was before I was actually aware of SEO. I just cranked out websites. The problem we found that was since we used very few words, the search engines didn’t seem to be able to find us. After lots of research and an online class, we revamped our approach and began blogging about the spa and its services. Months later, when Mother’s Day rolled around, our efforts paid off as people from across the United States found the website and purchased gift certificates for their mothers who lived in and around Lubbock.
Had we known these simple tricks, we could have brought in the traffic – and money – a lot sooner.
SEO Is as Simple as 1-2-3
1. Create great content. Blog posts and pages that use the words and phrases people would use if they were trying to find your website. Yes, you need to get wordy. Not too wordy, but a little. Think of phrases that someone might enter into a search engine to find your website. While you’re at it, ask friends and family to come up with phrases, too, in case they think about your business differently than you do.
Once you have your list, write blog posts that use those phrases. As I mentioned above, write great content. Stuff that people are going to want to read and to share. That will become very important in Step 2 below.
As an example, for this blog post my search engine phrase was “what is SEO,” which you’ll find at the beginning of the second paragraph and you’ll find the primary keyword, “SEO,” scattered all through the post as well as in the title and in the sub-headline above.
2. Get people to link to your pages. OK, I admit it. Step 2 is easier to write than it is to actually do. Creating great content, the kind of content that people want to share on Facebook and other websites, is a key ingredient to this.
Often referred to as backlinks, these links act as reference letters, ensuring the search engines that your content is valued by someone. Until you get enough regular readers engaged by your website, turn to your core fan base (at first this will simply be your family and friends) and ask them to share your posts, like them on Facebook, and maybe even refer to them on their own websites.
Keep in mind that quality links from real websites outweigh crappy links from those SEO spammers who promise to get you thousands of links. Grow it right, grow it organically.
3. Repeat. Yes, that’s really it. Create great content using words that phrases that people might use to find your website and get links back to your website from other websites and social media. It sounds simple enough, but Steps 1 and 2 both require some effort. However, with a little planning and though, you can do this in as little as 15 minutes per week. Whether it’s on a Monday or not is up to you.
The Quick Takeaway
SEO is a part science, part art. You can spend hours working on your tactics and perfecting your writing and keyword usage. But that’s not what your business is. Spend just enough of your precious time to create great (or good or even just decent) content on your website and get your fan base to help you share it with the world. And remember that this is an ongoing process, not something you crank out one weekend and it's magically done the next.