Search Engine Optimization Tips For Arkansas Businesses

Arkansas Business SEO For Organic Search

 If you own an Arkansas business you are likely doing business online in some way, shape or form. Perhaps you have a blog, a website, an "online presence" as we used to call it. In any case those efforts will largely have no effect if you don't understand and use good search engine optimization (SEO). What is that, you may be asking. I'm glad you asked.

The search engines are sites like Google that people search for information. Google isn't the only one, but they are by far, the biggest! I'm sure you're familiar with Bing, Yahoo and others as well. Essentially these search engines are ginormous databases you can search for information. They have small computer codes called spiders or bots that wander around the internet looking for new web pages to add to their database.

Search engine optimization is, in the most general terms, making the most out of opportunities to rank well in the search engines. In other words, it's doing what you can to come up first in Google! Why would we want to be first? Because those who are first get all the business.

Most business owners, or at least, brick and mortar businesses, understand how vital "location, location, location" is to their business. First page rankings in the search engine results pages, especially the top 3 spots, is the hope and dream of all online businesses. But most business owners don't have a clue as to how to make that happen.

Worse, companies like the Yellow Pages and some so-called SEO companies, charge an arm and a leg and DON'T DELIVER.

I do offer SEO services, but I deliver. Let me tell you about my personal experience with the Yellow Pages SEO folks. I was contacted about purchasing an ad and having them "help" me rank my website. Because I know how to do this myself I was not interested, but I did ask a few questions. This one was my favorite:

Question: "If I did choose to purchase your services, how long would it take to rank my website on the front page of Google?"

Answer: "Oh, almost no one ever ranks on the front page."

What? Are you kidding? Did I hear that right? No one? That's news to me. That's what I do. (http://www.mobilesitearmy.com) My question to them was, and I'll pose it to you now as well, if no one "ever ranks" then what are folks paying them for? I can't imagine. But lots of people do. My guess is because they are a big name company, who we want to trust with our business AND we generally don't have any other ideas about what to do. That's why you need...

Search Engine Optimization Tips

 First you need to know what the goal is and what it's called so you can discuss it intelligently. Check and Check.  Just saying the phrase "search engine optimization" should make you feel smarter.

Now for the tips. If you want to rank your site in the organic search engine listings you will need to break your efforts down into 2 main categories. On page optimization and off page optimization.

This is how I typically explain it. On page optimizing is like supping up your dragster. It's checking the oil, putting the best pistons in, making sure you have a clean air filter, anything that will help your vehicle be a better vehicle than the next guys.

In terms of your website, it's making sure the site itself, just like the dragster, is a well-oiled machine. That it loads quickly, that there's no extraneous code, that there are no code conflicts, that you can tell what the site and pages are about easily (or that the search engines can) and that sort of thing. It's making sure your site is the best it can be for the big competition. And it is a competition, believe you me. The site ranked highest in the organic searches gets the most traffic. The site with the most traffic stands to make the most sales and therefore the most money.

Website optimization tips include, more specifically, using meta tags to clearly declare what your site and pages are about. This means using the Title Tag and the Description Tag the right way. It also means not having duplicate content on your site or pages with little to no content. It means having an About Us page and a way to Contact you as well. Privacy Policies are required for some sites. These types of things must be taken care of.

Every single page should have a purpose, addressing a certain thing someone might search for and be clearly declared to be about that. Okay?

Don't fill it up with a ton of ads. A few are fine, but don't overwhelm anyone. Google wants people to enjoy finding the content they recommend - so the best tips for search engine optimization are to make your site "recommendable."

What then is Off Page SEO optimization? Well, off page is not so much about the car as it is about the fans watching the race. They hold up signs that would cause someone who didn't know the racers to know very clearly who had the most devoted fans. In some respects it's like a popularity contest. The one with the most votes wins.

Online the ways "votes" are cast is by linking to content we like. I don't share a link for a site I don't know about or like, right? Offpage seo involves the spiders or bots of search engines crawling around from site to site and taking note of all the "votes" or links to your content. In their opinion, the one with the most or biggest votes win.

Offpage optimizing is a bit more tricky. You definitely want the votes, but you don't want to stuff the ballot box. Spamming all over the place to get "votes" is frowned upon by Google, makes the user experience less pleasant and is wrong, just like stuffing a ballot box. You want to look for legitimate ways to promote your site by building links online. Hope you enjoyed reading my seo optimization tips. Leave me some comments or questions below.