Internet marketing and search engine optimization (SEO) are two terms that most people view as meaning the same. The question that I am most often asked is "How do I get my company at the top of the search results page?". This article describes some basic internet marketing and SEO techniques to help improve your rankings.
Non Stop Portals is teaching a class on Growing Sales Through The Internet. The class was developed as a primer for non-technical users. However, some of the techniques described in the class will require web development skills.
Internet Marketing
If you don't have a web site of your own, you need one. Just registering on the social media sites and creating a free blog doesn't really give you the tools you need to create your own brand and drive traffic to your site.
The basic steps for creating more site traffic are:
- Researching search engine keywords. Many of the key word used to find your product or service are very competitive. However, there are variations on phrases that you may not be aware of that could generate new traffic for your site.
- Optimizing web site content to attract visitors to your site through the organic rankings on the site. The site content or words are the most important element to attracting traffic to your site. There are several technical programming techniques used to help improve your rankings, but the key is to provide valuable and relevant content to site visitors.
- Inbound links from other sites are used by the search engines to determine how popular the site is. In bound links point back to your site address. The goal is to create inbound links from respected sites as opposed to just placing links on any site that will let you do so.
- Off-site content. It is possible to write content for other sites that are heavily searched by the search engines and create traffic back to your site. This can be accomplished by writing blog posts, press releases, and other techniques. A good example of creating off-site content is LinkedIn. Each of your agents needs to have a robust profile describing their personal background. There are a variety of off-site content tools to help promote your business.
- Monitoring of site analytics. Measuring effectiveness of your Internet Marketing and SEO efforts requires you to pay attention to the statistics.
SEO Developers
Why should you pay for someone to help you optimize your web site? An experienced SEO developer knows the process and they can help you get more traffic for your site faster. However, be careful of the "create huge traffic immediately" pitch. It just takes time for the search engines to see your SEO efforts. If a developer is promising overnight results, move on to the next candidate.
Non Stop Portals is teaching a class on Growing Sales Through The Internet. The class was developed as a primer for non-technical users. However, some of the techniques described in the class will require web development skills.
