SEO - What is it & Why is it Important

Author: Lynn Brown, Your Online Business Professional

You may have seen these initials (SEO) throughout your research for making money online.

SEO stands for ..... Search Engine Optimization.

SEO is a process to ensure your website or blog is designed to 'attrack' the search engines so that you can be 'ranked' higher when people are searching for you, your product or service.

This process includes such things as doing research for the appropriate keywords for your business. These keywords are descriptive to your business and is very important to optimizing your site. Keywords must be targeted words or phrases that best describes your business and products.

It isn't difficult to research and find the keywords. However, you should expect to spend some time to produce as many keywords so that you will have a better chance of ranking higher with the search engines. When someone searches your keyword or phrase you want to be listed on the first page of the search. Ranking at the number one position is attainable but does take some time.

Testing of your keywords and phrases is also essential to knowing what will work for your ebusiness.  And along with keywords that will connect your site to a higher ranking, link building is another essential part of SEO.  The more 'links" pointing to your site, these are called backlinks, the more the search engines will see lots of activity to your site and will want to rank you higher.

The most popular search engines are Google, Yahoo, MSN, Bing, AOL and Ask Jeeves. Search engines keep their methods and ranking algorithms secret, to get credit for finding the most valuable search-results and to deter spam pages from clogging those results. A search engine may use hundreds of factors while ranking the listings where the factors themselves and the weight each carries may change continually. Algorithms can differ so widely that a webpage that ranks #1 in a particular search engine could rank #200 in another search engine.

Your new website or blog should be 'submitted' to each search engine.  This will begin the search engines to 'spider'  its contents and begin to start looking at your site for ranking position.  It can take a few days to even weeks from referring of your site for all the main search engine spiders to commence visiting and indexing the new site.

If you are unable to research and choose keywords and work on your own search engine ranking, you may want to hire someone to work with you on these issues.  Outsourcing this task will save you time, however, be sure the individual you select to do this work understands your specific requirements.

There are also search engine marketing and promotion companies that will look at the plan for your site and make recommendations to increase your search engine ranking and website traffic. If you wish, they will also provide ongoing consultation and reporting to monitor your website and make recommendations for editing and improvements to keep website traffic flowing to your site and your search engine ranking high. Normally your search engine optimization experts work with your web designer to build an integrated plan right away so that all aspects of design are considered at the same time.

For those just starting out and on a strict budget, consider researching keywords and building links to your site on your own at first.  Once the site produces profitable income, consider outsourcing or hiring a professional team to manage and maintain your site and SEO.