The goal of any business is to make a profit, which comes from paying customers. In order to market online and survive, you need plenty of traffic to get those paying customers. You can spend a lot of money getting people to your website, but the key here getting visitors who are looking for what you have, and not how much you spend to get them.
Targeted traffic is people who are actively searching for what is on your webpage, as these are who you can convert into customers. Otherwise, traffic is just traffic. Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is the tools and the methods of putting your website within reach of the people who are looking for what you have to offer. Just having a website and a product, no matter how good they are, will not get you paying customers if they can?t fine you.
Keywords are the words and phrases that are typed into the search boxes on the search engines when people are looking for something. In order to find your webpage, you need to have the keywords they are searching for, not only on your page, but arranged and used in such a way that they are noticed and displayed by the search engines. SEO or Search Engine Optimization is the things that are done to get your webpage listed as close to the top of the SERP, specifically on the first page where people are most likely to see and click on your site. The goal is number one, but getting into the top 10 can be a real boost to your business.
Just getting people to your webpage is only the start, if you are looking to make a profit. You are going to need to provide solid content, have a good offer and a well written sales page, as well as a way to follow up. The whole process of converting a potential customer into a paying customer is a core part of the sales process, but you first need people to convert.
Keep in mind that SEO is more than just keywords. There are a few points to remember that will help customers choose your site over the others returned in a search. Metadata tags do not have the importance in SEO that they once had, but search engines will still use the description tag in the heading section of your html code in the search results to tell what your webpage is all about. If this tag is not there, the search engines will use the first few sentences on your webpage as the description. It is important to take your time and write a description, as well as the first few sentences, that will draw people to want to click on the link to your site.
Can SEO be an effective way to get customers to your site? Yes it can, and is a proven method of long term targeted traffic generation. Remember that the big search engines are not going to hand over a plan that tells you exactly what they are looking for to place your page in the number one SERP spot, but requires some know-how and a lot of testing. There are basic proven methods that work, and the best part about SEO is that once the initial work is finished, the traffic and the paying customers are all free, which means less marketing costs and more profits.
