If you have a site online, whether it is for business or some other reason, you want people to know about it and visit it. If it’s a business domain and no one comes to visit due to poor online search tactics, you’ll soon be out of business. Invisible websites don’t work. It’s that simple.
So then, how does one design and create a vibrant, highly visible website to the millions of cyber eyes out there searching, often seeking exactly what you are promoting? The key is search engine optimization, commonly known as SEO.
What Are the Search Engines Looking For?
SEO is the process of striving to make your site perfect in the eyes of the search engines, especially, but not exclusively, Google. SEO is not rocket science, but it is not super easy as well. It involves mastery of a number of different components of the online search world, including:
- Brilliant Content
- Masterful Keywords
- External Links
- Social Media Linkage
- Images and Video, as well as text
- Internal Linking, and more
Sure you can do this yourself, but not everyone will succeed. And by the way, what is meant by success? This is it: A high ranking on the search engine ranking pages (SERPs). If you are not on page one or two, you may essentially be invisible online.
The search engines have constantly changing metrics and algorithms by which they assess your site. Most site owners are not up-to-speed on the latest online search changes. For most folks, it’s best to work with an SEO professional when designing and maintaining your website. It generally pays to partner with the best link building service you can find.
Link Building the Right Way
Whether you work with a professional or attempt SEO by yourself, link building is of critical importance. Two types of links are important: Backlinks to outside sources and internal linking among the pages of your site.
In the early days of site building, the more links your site had to other sites on the web, the better your ranking would be, all other things being equal. Like buggy whips, those days are long gone. Google and the other engines would much rather have a site that has a few links to highly credible sites than one with a plethora of links to crummy cyber domains. A site designer, then, must pay full attention to winning a few quality backlinks. It’s mandatory in order to be competitive in online search.
Fortunately, with a little thought, or better yet, professional help, this can be achieved. Perhaps one of the best ways is to establish backlinks to experts in your subject area. For example, let’s say you have a business site revolving around the buying and selling of rare coins. Pursing backlinks with Coinweek.com, the American Numismatic Association, and perhaps Professional Coin Grading Services (PCGS) would be in order.
Another way to acquire strong backlinks is to seek out reciprocal linkage with similar, but not directly competitive sites. Again, using the rare coin example, you may wish to contact authors of popular coin books and seek out a backlink relationship.
Finally, not discussion of link building is complete with a few words about internal linking. Most sites these days have more than one page. Back to our coin site example, there will certainly be a main site landing page. From that main page, there may be several other pages, such as one for silver dollars, half dollars, quarters, etc. It goes without saying that your main page must link out to your other pages (where sales are often made). In addition, there must be linkage among all pages that you have back up to the main page and perhaps to other sub-pages on your domain as well. A well-linked and highly organized site is favored by the engines.
In Summary
To recap, do not underestimate the power of backlinks and internal links in making your site as visible to as many seekers as possible. If you lack sufficient knowledge in this aspect of SEO, it is a good idea to partner with an expert in online search.
