Top Tips For SEO Beginners

The Internet has changed the way we market all businesses, whether online or offline. Many traditional offline businesses now undertake a substantial level of the business directly online but also use the Internet to drive visitors to their offline outlets as well - many electrical appliance retailers are a great example of this.

So it now follows that instead of just marketing to people, we now have to also draw the attention of the search engines to drive traffic to increase our online exposure, that's where SEO or search engine marketing comes in.

Online marketers have developed a number of strategies that bring visitors to websites. These techniques, best known as SEO make your overall marketing activities achieve better results

What is SEO?

Search engine optimization (SEO) works on one basic principle - targeting specific keywords related to your product or service you are offering on your site. These keywords ideally need to be those that interested parties, i.e. your potential visitors are using to search for results in the search engines.

So to re-enforce this - These are keywords that are relevant to your business, and are also being searched for by web surfers. The idea is that when they enter these keywords into Google or another major search engine, your site comes up - hope this is clear because its essential understanding to all SEO activity. If you're keyword research is off then much of your other marketing activity, like article marketing will under perform as well, so do it right from the off.

Free Keyword Tool

Choosing these keywords can be daunting for many people at first, but Google's Free keywords Tool is a simple to use and is the best place to start. You simply enter keywords relevant to your business and it gives a whole list of suggestions for related terms. It also tells you how many searches they're getting, and what their trend over time looks like. Google's Free Adwords Tool is easy for anyone to use, just go there and try it

Top Tip - some of the headline keywords are obviously very competitive getting huge amounts of traffic. To get ranked well for them will be hard, a lot of work and /or expensive - so drill down the list to related terms that are not so competitive, you'll stand are far better chance to rank well for them

Getting Backlinks

Article directories are also a great way to get higher rankings in the search engines. You write articles or hire a writer to do them for you, and then post them to article directory sites. These are not long or involved articles; they can be short and simple. The idea is to offer something of value to the reader which will get them clicking through to your link for more. These help to get visitors to your site, but they also raise your ranking in the search engines by providing your site with backlinks. The more backlinks you get, the higher you'll rank.

Link Swaps - Should I do them?

You can also get backlinks through link swaps. This means that you find sites that are similar to yours and offer to link to them if they'll link to you. This works very well for blogs. It takes a lot of time, but it will get you lots of traffic and backlinks. It can also be done with automated software that will send out link requests instantaneously.

But beware some automated software will result in backlinks that are not niche specific, get too many of them and Google will penalise you - so think through your strategy carefully first. For Sam & I we prefer to stick clear of both swaps (to get full value you need to monitor them) & automated software preferring article marketing, blog and forum posting.

Using Social Media To Attract Customers

One of the biggest things now in Internet marketing is social media. Social media sites achieve massive traffic because quite literally the ongoing 24/7 interaction between people all over the world

As you'll know especially if you have teenagers the most popular are Facebook, Twitter and MySpace. These are great places to get backlinks to your site. While there are lots of different strategies, the simplest method to start with is to grow your friends list and encourage them to use your profile. Offer them something they can use or get by visiting your site, like a fun game or activity, or a place to talk about something that matters to them.

A word of caution here on social media sites, it's important not to appear spammy or like you're only there to promote your site. What you should do is let your fans simply use your profile, and the backlinks will come naturally. Use the site to build up a loyal fan base and the search engines will notice.

Most businesses these days are very tuned into the necessity of using Internet marketing for the sound, profitable health of the business (and in some cases the literal survival of it). The Web has truly changed the way marketing works, but the good news is that it has made it much easier in some ways and cheaper being able to target your prospective customers. Anybody can use Internet marketing to boost their business! Really hope this introduction to some SEO strategies has been useful, but as with everything learning is necessary, doing it is what makes it work - so do get on.


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Toby Russell offers tried and tested methods to help you succeed on line. Find out how to generate highly targeted traffic to your own Internet Marketing business with his popular Free Special Report, available at =>
http://www.startinternetmarketingonline.com