SEO -- THE QUICK AND DIRTY

Las Vegas seems to be the land of small businesses. So if you have FINALLY set up your website and you are so happy with the content that you think people around the world would want to read it, how on earth will you get readers? How will they know you exist? The short, simple answer is SEO.

You may have heard all the hype about “SEO” which stands for search engine optimization, but what does it really mean? SEO gets you noticed so you can build traffic to your site. So today I want to explain what SEO is in layman’s terms. I also will explain how you can use some simple tactics to help improve the SEO of your website and hopefully get yourself some more readers.

And as we know, more readers can equal more dollars for you and your company.First and foremost, your website better be good. If you’re really smart, you’ve hired a professional to lay out your site with a custom look and feel that communicates what you are about: Selling product or services, Community Info (like VCO) or a social networking site. Once your site is baked, it will be ready for prime time! While you can pay people to help you with SEO via online forums and word of mouth (not terribly effective and highly time consuming), there are simpler methods for those of you using. Let’s start with the basics.

According to Google, “SEO agencies and SEO consultants provide useful services for website owners, from writing copy to giving advice on site architecture and helping to find relevant directories to which a site can be submitted”. However, a few unethical SEOs have given the industry a black eye through their overly aggressive marketing efforts and their attempts to unfairly manipulate search engine results.Ultimately, as an honorable businessperson, you want to improve the volume and quality of traffic to your company’s web site from search engines via “natural” (”organic”) search results.

So in short, SEO is the a way of improving your page rank and number of pages indexed by search engines so more traffic comes to your site from search engine user searches. It really is that simple.If you are considering whether you really are ready for SEO, be smart and do some research on the industry. Google is a great place to start. You might also seek out a few of the cautionary tales that have appeared in the press, including this article on one particularly aggressive SEO: Internet Advancement told to refund clients.

While Google doesn’t comment on specific companies, they are aware – and you should be too—of firms calling themselves SEO specialists who follow practices that are clearly beyond the pale of accepted business behavior. So, be careful. Use a professional like the experts at Red Carpet Marketing. We’ve been involved with Search Engine Optimization for more than seven years. We get it. You can too so you will get your site better visibility particularly if you have an ecommerce company, you NEED SEO.For more information or a free 30-minute consultation, drop me a note at MaryAnnButcher@LVRedCarpet.com