The Importance of Search Engine Optimization
The Internet is one of the most incredible inventions of all time. With the Internet all whole world of information is at everyone’s fingertips. It has drastically changed the way all businesses run. There are approximately 3.6 billion people online. In the coming years it is expected that nearly everyone on the planet will be connected and will be using the Internet in some way.
One of the most commonly used applications online is the search engine. There are more than 300 million websites online and it is through search engines like Google that people will find information they need from those websites. The major search engines like Google, Yahoo and being show about 10 results for any keyword that is queried on the first page of the search results. Most people will not look past that first page because they usually find what they need on that page.
Considering there is limited space on the first page of search engine results businesses have to make sure that they get highly ranked for relevant keywords for the business. Businesses can use pay per click advertising which they can buy through Google in order to help them get a higher ranking. However, the cost of advertising can really add up quickly so a business will want to find other ways to get traffic while keeping advertising dollars to a minimum.
There is one question many businesses have and that is what exactly is search engine optimization? There are over 200 factors that Google uses in order to rank webpages. Many of these factors can be adjusted so that a website can rank high in the search engine page results. This means some businesses can get free traffic from major search engines simply by optimizing their websites about it is more attractive to search engines.
The definition of search engine optimization is it is an art of managing factors in order to get a website a higher ranking on search engine result pages. Bear in mind that these search engines use algorithms in order to calculate rankings and so on. The algorithm information is closely guarded. Search engine optimizers will do their own tests and scrape data to find out various factors that have the highest impact on search engine ranks.
Nearly everyone uses a smart phone today. Research has shown that almost 60 percent of adults in America have a smart phone. This number continues to grow. What this means is that most people are online every hour of the day. It is estimated that about 95 percent of consumers will search online before they decide to spend money on a service or product. Studies have shown that most people will look for information using their smart phone when they need to find something locally.
Google states that 90 percent of mobile phone users look up addresses and phone numbers of businesses online. Local searches usually result in sales more often than not. This means that most businesses have got to maintain a good solid online presence and rank high in search results in order to keep getting business.
There was once a time when local businesses didn’t have to pay attention to becoming part of a local search engine optimization program. Today businesses cannot do without having search engine optimization as a part of their overall marketing strategy. Consumers look to search engines to deliver trustworthy information, and if they don’t see a local business online they may as well believe that business simply does not exist.