Move over Yellow Pages!  The internet has significantly outdone the Yellow Pages as the primary source for local consumer information.  Thus, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), or getting one’s website ranked high in search engines is now not only “nice to have”, but essential.  The following are the two main features of SEO to help you improve your “organic” rankings in Search Engines, completely free of charge.

On-page SEO Tactics

This type of SEO is mostly technical in nature and, can and should be applied to every page of your website.  On-page SEO should accomplish three goals:

  • You want to make sure your website code is well-coded.  It should be easily read and understood by search engines.
  • Your webpage should be constructed around significant key word phrases that will make visitors drawn to your site.
  • Last, but not least your website’s design should be appealing and your content found valuable to your visitors.

Search engines, such as Google, track how long visitors remain on your site, so adding engaging applications like videos, contests or newsletter signups bring added benefits to you; the longer they remain on your page, the higher your rankings go on the search engine.

Off-page SEO Tactics

The most important off-page SEO tactic is how many links your site has pointing to it from other Web pages; the more links you have the better.  Each link pointing to your page is like a bonus for you.  The search engines figure, if another site likes you enough to link you, your content must be worth some value! 

To find out how many “inlinks” you have follow these steps:

  • Go to Yahoo.com and in the search box type www.yourdomain.com(inserting your actual domain in place of “yourdomain.com”).  This will take you to the “Yahoo Site Explorer.”
  • Once there, select “Except from this domain” from the “Show inlinks” dropdown menu.  This will only show you links found from other sites that are linked to you. 

It is imperative to continually build links to keep your website ranking at the top of search engines. 

Visitors are what make your website useful.  So to keep your targeted traffic flowing to your page, SEO tactics are crucial.  Try using these on and off page tactics to enhance your search engine optimization. 

The information above is adapted from “(Search Engine Optimization For Local Businesses),” by Chad DeBolt.