iTec Web Design

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) refers to the process of actively improving a website’s rank and visibilty in search engines.  The goal of SEO is to drive high doses of targetted traffic to a website in order to generate more conversions and ultimately increase revenues.  SEO is inarguably the most effective marketing strategy on the web. Over 85% of all website traffic is driven by search engines.  If you have an online presence but lack a high position in search engine ranks, then you’re not generating the full ROI potential from your website and everyday you‘re losing money to competitors who outrank you!

Putting it into perspective..

Think about the last time you picked up an actual yellow pages book and flipped through it to search for a particular service. Depending on your demographic, the chance you’ve done this recently is negligible.  Now think about the last time you “Googled“ a particular service. Even if you’re an outlier who still opts for print material over Internet searches, most successful businesses today acknowledge and cater to the widespread, rapidly growing customer base that searches online for businesses, services, products, information, media and entertainment.

Technically Speaking

Search engine optimization takes place both internally and externally. Internal optimization refers to the lay-out, organization and density of elements and information onsite. In basic terms, internal SEO is all the things you do to your website that will make Google notice you.

Although the actual content on your website has some bearing on your page rank, Google’s algorithm is too smart to only pay attention to your website and it’s content. Search engines prefer to allow other websites to determine your worthiness and popularity, and as a result, more emphasis is placed to other websites that LINK to yours (and the popularity of those websites).  Getting other sites to link to yours is called external SEO.

Naturally the corollary question becomes: which is more important, internal SEO or external SEO? You can find various theories on this strewn accross the web, however, most professional SEO companies will answer external.  Although it’s possible to achieve high ranks by solely focusing on your website, the result will often be an enormous, illegible, not to mention expensive, website that is keyword & link-spammed to the point of incomprehension.  Since we don’t want to negatively affect conversions, it‘s best to focus on external SEO. In fact, Google places so much emphasis on what others think of you, it is possible to actually rank #1 for a keyword that’s not even mentioned on your website!

Position is Everything

It’s better to rank #1 for a single high-traffic keyword, than to rank average for 250 mediocre keywords. In other words, good SEO is all or nothing; you’re in a far superior position having a couple of high-ranking keywords than hundreds of mediocre-ranking keywords. This is why we deal with 1st page Google results only. Traffic potential decreases exponentially with every subsequent page.