What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Let’s go over some basics here to make sure everyone is on the same page. Many of  you already know the basics, but some of you don’t.

First, let’s make sure we all know what “SEO” is

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the method that helps boost organic traffic from internet search engines to your site.  This equates to the ability to be “found” when people search for certain key words.  Good SEO comes from both on-site and off-site methods and generally consists of backlinks, content, title tags, and to a lesser extent your META information. Both on-site and off-site SEO are used as ways of helping websites, companies, and people in general, rank higher in search engine results. Great SEO invariably includes research and effort, which includes finding good keyword phrases to target, adjusting page titles, META info, image ALT tags, quality and unique content, generating backlinks, and more.  In addition to having good quality content, backlinks are probably the best and fastest way a website can gain exposure on the Internet. The more sites that link to your site, the more importance Google will give you and the more traffic you will get from the search results.

Next, let’s cover exactly what a “backlink” is

A backlink is a link on one website that leads a visitor or search engine back to another website. This can be done for informational reasons, monetary or sales reasons, friendship or partnership reasons, or other reasons.  Whatever the reason, backlinks are important because they are a huge part of the ranking algorithm search engines use to determines how important your website is.

Quality of backlinks?

The quality of the backlink placement can be judged by its host-a page and how many sites that page links out to, and the quality of the sites it links out to.  For example, a backlink on a website that only sees 100 unique hits per day isn’t worth as much as a backlink that is featured on the front page of The Wall Street Journal’s website which millions of people read an hour. Or, a link on a website that is not in the same niche as you, or that already has many outbound links pointing at shady sites like porn and Viagra will not be very beneficial to you and may actually do more harm than good.

Backlinks done correctly and put together with the right anchor text and placed on key websites in your niche will drive an immense amount of traffic to your website from both search engines and the sites that are actually linking to you.

So, what are backlink services?

Backlink services are offered by a company or individual where they use their time and knowledge to get you backlinks to your website in exchange for money. There is definitely no shortage of backlink services out there. The trick is to find a quality service that doesn’t require a second mortgage on your house and is not going to harm your reputation by spamming the internet with your site. If you’re new to the backlink process it may be in your best interest to hire an experienced professional to do the bulk of your backlinking.

Doing it yourself

When you have got the right tools, it isn’t hard to become a number one site on search engines like Google, Yahoo or Bing. Most people are usually unable to pay thousands of dollars a year to expose new visitors to their links, driving traffic in.  So, they try it themselves.  Posting on blogs and forums on your own can be effective, but can take away much more of your time, and can easily become a never-ending task with variable results and mediocre traffic.

Another way to get backlinks is to write a good article and post it on an article directory.  Some of the best directories are very high ranking and will certainly boost your site’s rank in the search engines.  Additionally, other sites or blogs may choose to use your article, giving you further backlink effect.

Videos have become a new standard in search engine optimization and are very effective in helping sites get noticed by search engines.  If you have the ability to make a great video that people are interested in, upload it to one of the popular video sharing sites.  Just make sure that it has your website prominently displayed and that there is some way to link it back to your site.

Quality of backlinks

Creating a good quality backlink is just as important as having a paid, quality backlink. A good backlink will be found on a high PR website that has content along the same lines as your own site. Quality backlinks can be determined by a number of factors:

Age – the older a website is the better
Number of outbound links on the page/site that’s linking to you – the fewer the OBL’s the better
The types of sites being linked to on the host site – if your site is being linked to from a page full of Viagra links and other spammy types of links reduces most or all of the SEO benefit of your site.
The PR of the site linking to you – while PR is definitely not the most important factor, it’s still something to think about especially when you are talking about PR5’s or higher
The niche of the linking site – If you can get a high PR link from a quality site that’s in the same niche as you then you’re more credible in the search engine’s eyes.

The ideal backlink will be from a high quality site, few outbound links, fairly old, and in the same niche as you. If you can pull that off you will be doing great.

Don’t forget in addition to all the SEO services outlined in this blog post, we also offer custom SEO services using powerful strategies that are not outlined in this post.