Search engine optimization (SEO)

Search engine optimization (SEO) is about taking your online marketing to a different level, with blogging and social media

You can achieve your fullest potential on and off the web.

Written by Ryan Chaffin, follow Ryan on Twitter @ryanchaffin

Advertising is an integral strategy when working towards business success and growth. Internet advertising is extremely competitive. The vast numbers of websites using online marketing make it essential to have a website that attracts viewers and helps bring your online marketing to the next level. Search engine optimization, or SEO, makes this possible. The purpose of SEO is to increase the visibility of a website for internet consumers. When internet consumers shop for products or services online using a search engine, SEO will allow a website to be easily found by search engine queries.

One of the ways SEO accomplishes this is by editing content of a website to increase its relevance to specific keywords. For example, if an auto insurance company in Walla Walla, Washington wanted to increase its visibility, SEO consultants might change the content of their website to increase its relevance to their keywords.

Walla Walla Auto Insurance. When a consumer then searches for auto insurance in Walla Walla, Washington the search engine will recognize those keywords in the query and match them with the keywords on the website.

Another way SEO increases the visibility of a website is to use search engine friendly web design, they call it responsive. Websites are designed with a landing page, or home page, as well as associated content pages. Links back to the landing page from a content page or blog post they are called cross links. By creating cross links back to the landing page from each associated content page, the landing page becomes more visible. A website’s design with menus for cross linking allow for more information to be shared and more keywords to be used creating a more visible web page.

Other strategies to improve your online marketing include using social media and brand management to make the design more appealing and attractive. Adding videos and images to a website increases the consumer’s pleasure when viewing the site.