Do You Need Search Engine Optimization?

By Rick Carbone

Many people ask the same question, " Do I need SEO for my website?" The answer is categorically, yes. Search Engine Optimization is not just an add-on but a necessity for online businesses. The simple reason is money.

If you have a properly optimized website you will reap the benefits of organic search traffic. This is traffic generated by search engine keyword searches. If you are well optimized you will appear in the first few pages of each of the search engines. This is free traffic and lots of it depending on how well you are optimized.

There are different types of search engine optimization the most common are "on page" and "off page optimization. On Page optimization is essentially keyword related. Keywords are the word searches that people find you through the search engines. A quick explanation is the following example: You own a bicycle shop and you have a website. You specialize in customized mountain bikes. You want people to find you through the search engines so you optimize your site for the search term of "custom mountain bikes." So this means that you use this keyword phrase throughout your site. You use it in articles, headings and tags.

As a result of this your website comes up on the first few pages of searches for that term. Editor’s Note: It’s really not this easy, it requires a lot of experience or software to make it really work.

The second type of optimization is what is called Off Page. Off Page optimizing is relatively simple. You place strategic links on other sites using anchor text. An example is using the same search phrase above on another site that links to your site. This is done through a simple HTML line of code that shows the phrase "custom mountain bikes" on another site with the search phrase having a direct link to your site. When search engines send out their robots to scan the Internet they will see the term "custom mountain bikes" associated with your site.

I have only grazed the surface of this topic and there are far more capable individuals that do this for a living than I. However, I think that this section of our site provides a sound footing on the topic so I encourage you to look around.