I am Richard Bach, an online marketer, who loves to explore the vast and varied online world and study the various concepts associated with it, one of them being Internet marketing. This is also called online marketing and is a cumulative term which is inclusive of strategies and methods used by an online entrepreneur to ensure that his venture is noticed by Internet visitors.
An aspect of Internet marketing that I realized earlier on pertained to its similarity to conventional marketing in the sense that both shared the objective of informing the public about a business with a view to increase sales. But that is where the similarity between the two ends because the tools used for meeting this objective are a world apart.
What interests me most about online marketing is its sinusoidal nature - while your efforts might have positioned you on top of search engine rankings, it is just a matter of time wherein a slight change in algorithm is sufficient to send you crashing down to the bottom. Because keywords and SEO are two of the most discussed aspects of online marketing, it is these that I have focused on all through this website. I hope that you find the content informative and useful and look forward to reading your comments.
Why are keywords regarded as being the backbone of SEO?
SEO, an acronym for the phrase Search Engine Optimization, is the first requisite that needs to be fulfilled for online marketing of a website to be successful. To this effect, something that is truly imperative for every online entrepreneur is that SEO is a comprehensive package that comprises of several individual techniques, one of them being keywords. The best way to describe the relationship between SEO and keywords is to compare the concept to a family wherein SEO is the name of the family and keywords are one of the members that belong to the family. Like the way in which every member plays a pivotal role in strengthening the family, keywords contribute towards the strength of SEO, meaning they determine the degree to which application of SEO would be effective in transforming the fortunes of a website.
So what exactly are keywords? Words that reflect the nature of your business and pertain to the content of your website are known as keywords. Because keywords are placed on web pages in order to be intercepted by search engines, they should be chosen with care for online marketing to be successful. In addition to serving as tags for the web pages, keywords also act as anchors and hence need to be positioned correctly in order to make a positive impression on the search engine spiders. Some of the factors that influence keyword selection and usage are relevancy, density and positioning wherein a website that comprises of keywords relevant to its business in appropriate density and proper positions would emerge as a topper on an online marketing chart.
Listed as follows are guidelines that would enable you to make optimal use of keywords for successful SEO -
- Preparing a list of words and phrases appropriate for your business - Intimidating though this task might seem, all you need to do is utilize one or several online tools, generators and finders to churn out words and phrases that reflect your products, services and business in its entirety. Of course, you cannot use all of them and hence the next step entails sifting through the list of words and phrases that have a high probablity of being searched on the Internet. Another guideline in this regard advocates the use of keywords that are common to your niche as opposed to those that are rarely used and hence have a lesser probability of being recognized.
- Identify your target audience - Who are the end users of your products and services and what is the main purpose of your website? Finding answers to these two questions will enable you to determine your client base and choose your keywords accordingly. This in turn will ensure that your website reaches the right segment of population and the content is convincing enough for them to take an active interest and hit the call for action button.
- Distribute your keywords uniformly across all the pages of your website - Not only should keywords appear on all the pages of the website but these should also be strategically placed so as to be counted as relevant rather than discarded as spam. Your individual creativity plays an important role here and you may employ it to come up with creative and interesting versions that will generate results.
Why does SEO qualify as an effective online marketing tool?
In online marketing, success is gauged through several parameters like amount of traffic received by the website, its placement in search engines and its conversion ratio. Importance of SEO as an online marketing tool arises from its ability to impact all these parameters and as a result ensure that the website is not just well known in the virtual space but also provides a healthy return on investment that every online entrepreneur dreams of.
Some benefits of SEO that enable it to qualify as an effective tool for online marketing are -
Increased web-based traffic - On being implemented well, SEO ensures that more number of people visit your website, meaning it enjoys high traffic. This in turn implies that more number of Internet surfers would be aware of your products and services and your presence would be duly acknowledged.
Brand credibility - Good visibility and high ranking reflect well on your business and what could be better than this to add credibility to your brand?
Improving global reach - As an online entrepreneur, the entire world is your playground and as a result your website will be viewed by people all over the world. Not only will it benefit from the exposure but you will have reached out to target audience in far-flung countries without burning a hole in your pocket.
Efficient SEO ensures that your website serves the purpose for which it had been constructed, thus satisfying the basic condition of online marketing, namely publicity.