SEO stands for search engine optimization and it’s the process of optimizing a website or webpage for search engines to find and categorize that content. SEM (Search Engine Marketing) is also a popular term.

While that’s the short idea behind as SEO the expanded version could go on for pages and pages because there are literally hundreds of nuances, techniques, tricks, and maneuvers marketers, writers, webmasters, and bloggers can do to make their site, their blog post, and their webpage show up on search engines for the topic they’re trying to cover.

If you’re new to blogging or SEO or perhaps both, this idea of optimizing for search engines may seem like a foreign language to you. Understanding how to write for people and get the leads plus write for the search engines can get confusing and frustrating to say the least. But should we give up on it entirely? Should we blog for the sake of blogging not caring whether it’s found or not?

You need to decide what your website needs to achieve and what the end result needs to be behind blogging and marketing yourself online.

Are you looking for leads?

Do you want to educate people?

Are you looking for a high conversion rate?

Are you looking for subscribers?

Are you looking for business?

Are you looking for referrals?

Do you just want to rant?

Do you want to start a conversation?

And your answer may be a combination of several of these questions. But beginning with the end in mind will help tailor your blogging style and your optimization techniques to achieve the result that you’re really looking for.

• Make sure you start with the title of your website, webpage, or blog post. This is crucial to capturing the right type of audience together the results that you need. The title of this blog post is a great example in capturing people that just want some basics on SEO.

• Know when to post and where to post. Find where your voice and your results are going to get the best bang for your buck. ActiveRain may be great for real estate agents looking to capture consumers; your website may be a great place to continually add information and educational content; social media may be where the majority of your business will come from and starting a conversation and connecting with business associates and consumers on a variety of social media platforms will make the most sense.

• Be personal, educational, informative, and scannable. People want to know the basics even if they have just a few seconds to look at your content. Tell them what they’ve come there to learn and expand on it later in the article rather than providing them a huge lead up where you could lose them in the process.

• And I always can’t stress the importance of internal linking enough. Carry your reader from one article to another by offering  suggested posts, additional reading, more information etc. If you’re writing an article on “can I afford to buy a home in California”, somewhere in that article should be a teaser link to another article possibly “how much money do I need to buy a home?”

SEO is a process and something that’s built over time. Google and other search engines want to see an active website that’s engaging and informative. They monitor how long people stay on the site, how many pages they're viewing per visit, and if they’re sharing, liking, and discussing the website or the blog post with others.

I know many of you will still say it’s over your head and you simply write whatever you want to write. That’s fine. But if you’re looking for a little bit more; want to engage your reader, gain more leads, be found more often on the search engines, and convert more consumers to your business, you have to spend a little bit of time optimizing your blog and your website.

Want to know MORE ABOUT SEO? Check out this informative blog post:  Everything You've Ever Wanted to Know about SEO ... Well Almost

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Tammy Emineth is an expert in custom content and original articles for blogs, website, press releases and more. Contact me anytime and feel free to subscribe to this blog to stay up to date on my latest blogs and informative information. Email me or contact me for Real Estate Website Marketing and SEO Content Writing.

The information contained in this blog is believed to be true and correct and while every effort is made to assure that the information is as accurate as possible, the author of this blog, and its comments disclaim any implied warranty or representation about it's accuracy for any particular purpose. All information is copy written and the property of Tammy Emineth.