In a modern day commercial environment, it’s pretty hard to escape Search Engine Optimisation; perhaps you have simply heard the term ‘SEO’ down the pub chatting with friends or maybe it is something that has been recommended to you by colleagues. Either way, if you run a business that has any level of online presence, you need to have an understanding of what SEO is and the benefits it carries for internet marketing.

A professionally designed website is the perfect starting point to encouraging additional clientele for your business; however no matter how sleek and informative your website is, if people cannot find it, it’s pretty useless to you which is where SEO comes into play.

If you are utterly confused by the many processes that fall under the category of SEO, you needn’t worry as this post guarantees to bust the jargon and give you simple, accurate definitions of a few frequently used SEO related terms and their features and benefits.

Article Marketing

Having articles written specifically for your business is a fantastic way of adding high quality content to your website. When it comes to article marketing it really is a case of quality over quantity as you need the posts to be well written, informative and to the point rather than pages and pages of meaningless text littered with keywords. Getting a content writer to produce such articles is highly advantageous as it is their job to paint your business in the most positive of lights. They are qualified to seek out all your business has to offer and showcase this in a carefully structured piece of content.

Blogging

With millions upon millions setting up blogs across the world, it isn’t hard to see the benefit of doing so yourself. A blog gives you the opportunity to have a voice on the web and by installing a publishing platform such as WordPress, you can add regular posts in a simple and professional looking manner, so it needn’t be a technical chore each time you have something you want to say.

Conversion Rate

After implementing a range of SEO techniques that have achieved anticipated results in terms of driving traffic to your website and improving the authority of site, the conversion rate is the measure of just how many potential customers went on to actually purchase from you; essentially it is the evidence of how well these processes have worked for your business.

Internal Linking

Any visitor of your site wants an easy, user friendly experience. This starts from simply being able to find you on page one of Google, which without SEO is pretty tricky to achieve. Once they have found your site, they want to navigate themselves to where they need to be with minimal effort which is where internal linking proves beneficial. Creating links within the text of your website to your other pages gives the user what they want in a single click.

Keywords

Choosing keywords is essentially predicting what a member of the public would type into a search engine should they be seeking the service you offer. Keywords form the basis of your SEO campaign so it is imperative that research is undertaken to make sure the right ones are chosen. An SEO consultant will be able to find the very best keywords for your business and available budget. These keywords can then be used within the content on your site to help search engines understand what your site is all about as well as pointing your potential customers in the right direction.

SEO can be a minefield if you are unfamiliar with its complexities, so getting your head around the basics gives you a fantastic starting point on which to build your understanding of internet marketing upon. Blending expert knowledge of your business with strategically carried out SEO techniques can propel the success of your business to an entirely new level so for this reason you can’t afford not to get on board with SEO.

About: This article was written by Sophie Baker-Britton, a content writer for a leading SEO organisation. Specialising in Search Engine Optimisation, the company also offers chief internet marketing services which include video production, web design, ecommerce solutions and email marketing.