Is Your Website SEO Friendly?

Business owners use their websites to reach new customers from across the country and also for those customers who may be a little unsure about the best service or product provider for a particular item. While some people may think it comes down to luck or even word of mouth when it comes to discovering new customers over the Internet, a properly prepared and maintained website is one of the most beneficial ways of increasing one’s visibility on search engines.

SEO, or search engine optimization, is an extremely reliable marketing technique to improve one’s ranking on search engines. There are a few important elements that each website must have in order for it to be successful on the Internet. Here is a list of factors to keep in mind when determining if a website is SEO friendly.

• Content plays a massive role in the optimization of a website. New visitors to a website are very powerful when it comes to determining the credibility of a website based on the type of reading material, or content it provides. For instance, a website that manufacturers a certain product and writes very little about its capabilities may force a website browser to move on to another site that offers a similar product. At the same time, a website that writes extreme amounts on a single topic may put off a web visitor because they don’t want to fish through the jargon to get the information they need quickly. In turn, there is a perfect balance of content that is not only helpful to the reader, but also provides the popular search engines with information that will bring new customers to the site. Well-written content will create a sense of authenticity to both the consumer and the search engine.

Page structure involves the language and how easily one can navigate through a website. Well-organized websites also benefit search engines because it helps them to easily recognize where the navigation, headings and content are. Be specific

• when coding and using heading tags.
• Although images and graphics best benefit the consumer while they are shopping around for a new product, search engines do not easily recognize these. Flash is one of the most popular programs for designing a website full of imagery and vivid elements. However, these are the worst websites when it comes to SEO.
• Give priority to the homepage and provide it with rich content that will drive traffic to the website. Determine specific keywords that embody the premise behind the service and/or product and hyperlink it to another page on the site to attract new customers.
• Attempt to get back links from other relevant websites by providing important comments in other websites’ articles or blogs. Search engines will give priority to a website if this is done in the right way.

There are a variety of ways to improve a website’s ranking so it is important to keep in the forefront of Internet marketing trends and be well aware of the current SEO techniques to make a business and website flourish.

This guest post was written by Ryan Frank, an avid blogger and Internet marketing enthusiast living in San Diego, CA. Ryan currently works for BestRank.com, a SEO consulting firm specializing in search engine and social media marketing.