This is a general layman's overview of SEO. It's not meant to go in depth and reveal all the tricks of the trade, but it will hopefully explain a few basic concepts and show some of the little things you can do to attract traffic to your products.
What is SEO?
SEO is a form of online marketing. Search Engine Optimization (or search engine marketing) is the process of making a site and its content highly relevant for both search engines and searchers. Successful search marketing helps a site gain top positioning for relevant words and phrases. (
definition courtesy of http://www.searchenginewriting.com)
SEO is the core of all online selling. It's what drives the buyers to you instead of your competitors. SEO is accomplished in many ways and I'll explain those in a bit.
First things first...
You want buyers to be able to find you, so your first goal should be to rank as high as possible in the Search Engine results. On Google there are three main ways of showing up when someone does a general search.
1)
Paid Advertising (Sponsored Links) - We've all seen these. They are generally on the right hand side of any search results page and you get there by paying for certain keywords. Costly but effective SEO method.
2)
Organic Search - This is where your site or listing comes up in what I call the 'general' search results. This is the best place to be if you can get your keywords tweaked where you show up on page one or two. It's FREE, most searchers look at them, once you get there odds are you'll stay awhile and did I mention it's FREE.
3)
Google Products - This is where Google displays the items that have been uploaded into Google Base. While this is a great place to show up, it's still a luck of the draw. Google displays these randomly three at a time. If there is heavy competition in your product line, sometimes you'll show up, sometimes you won't. You also have to be very diligent about uploading your products to Google Base. They expire every 30 days and if you forget, you disappear.
A common misunderstanding...and I say common because I've had to explain it numerous times and even then some people just don't get it...
showing up in Google Products IS NOT considered being on page one of Google's search results. Depending on the luck of the draw, you may be there, you may not. The more specific the search phrase used the more likely you will show up. If the searcher does a very generic one or two word search, Google doesn't even bother to display the Products on page one.
Organic search doesn't work that way. Either you're on the first page or you aren't ALL the time.
(Until someone does a better job of SEO than you and bumps you down. 
)Difference in placement of Google Products and Google Organic Search Results:
So the first thing you have to decide when optimizing your listings or website is where you want to show up. Ideally, all three places, but since not everyone can afford an extensive AdWords campaign, we are going to concentrate on showing up in the other two places.
We'll be continuing this thread with more information and would like to hear comments, questions and input from everyone! So jump in!!
Author
