The key to being found by search engines

Using the words and phrases from your everyday work to make it easier to find your business on the web.

One of the most common misconceptions we see with websites is the old saying, “If we build it, they will come.” Too many times, businesses forget that search engines need a little more help than a URL when it comes to returning them in a list of search results.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is all about being found. In a nutshell, SEO includes all the things you can do on your website and beyond to help make it easier for search engines to find you, and to know when to list your website when someone is looking for you.

Like most strategies, SEO has many layers. There isn’t simply one thing anyone can do to be placed at the top of a search engine results list. There are many different ways to optimize your website for search engines, too many to list here. But one of the places to start is with “keywords”.

What are keywords

Keywords are words used by the search engines to search for information related to a specific topic. If your website is optimized correctly, the keywords used in your website match the search being performed. A keyword doesn’t have to be single word; sometimes it can be a phrase.

When someone enters a word or phrase into a search engine, like Google or Yahoo, the search engine looks to see what sites use that keyword or phrase most and how relevant those sites are to your search. Then based on how that keyword relates to other things in the search, the search engine will know whether to return a website and how to rank it in the search results.

Search engines keep generic lists of keywords that are general to everyone in the world. Some keywords come directly from your field or business type, such as accountant. Others will be closely associated your business or industry, like business taxes.

Then search engines scan the Internet for websites with these keywords. They will then match up these keywords with their own lists to understand what a website is promoting and how to rank it.

Come up with your own list

Identifying keywords that are specific for your business is easier than you might think. No one knows your business better than you do. As part of your daily work, you probably use most of these key words and don’t even think about it.

One of our SEO partners, Rank Magic, has written a useful blog post with links where you can learn more about selecting keywords for your business: The Small Business Guide to Choosing Keywords. This post will inform you about how to best create a list of keywords that are not only relevant to your business, but that also reflect what terms people are searching for on search engines.

Putting keywords to work

Once you have your list of keywords, they need to be incorporated into your website. When looking at how to most effectively incorporate keywords into your site, you need to strike a balance between providing authentic & compelling content for your visitors and incorporating your keywords with an appropriate frequency and format into the content & code of the pages.  At TAG, we work with you to achieve this balance to produce the best results in the search engines and for the people viewing your site.

Finally, your keywords should be used in your social media updates and postings, along with links back to various pages within your website.

TAG Online partners with some of the best SEO experts in the industry. We can work with them to help determine the best SEO strategy for your online presence.

Call or email us today to talk about better SEO for your website.