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St. Louis SEO - How Search Engine Optimization Works

There is a power word that circulates among CEOs and salespeople. SEO. Search Engine Optimization. But what is it? What can it do for your company, and most importantly, how do you use it? In the 1980s, and even the first half of the 90s, if you wanted a service, a store, or a physician - where did you go? If you didn't know the store or business you were looking for, you went to the yellow pages. Search Engines are modern yellow pages; Search Engine Optimization is how to get your site to rank for the keywords that you think people will search for your business with.
The reason that full page ads in the yellow pages were worth so much money, was because the return on investment was monumental. If companies didn't use ads, they would sometimes name their business AAA Business, or AA Business - specifically to get that first spot in the column. Our days of alphabetizing success are behind us.
With the advent of effective search engines (remember Dogpile? Oh no...), the way people found a business radically changed. Google was supposed to return results based on reputation, location, and most importantly, keword-driven search. What do you type when you search for a business? The location? The specific service you are looking for? The occupation title? And how do Google, Bing and Yahoo decide which results to return to you? Algorithms that judge the content of your site, the connectivity of your site, the update frequency, size and other factors determine which sites are most suitable to return to any given search customer. These companies carefully guard these algorithms, and while it is clear what works and what doesn't in a general sense, Search Engine Optimization (or optimizing a Web site to be found for specific terms), is half science, and half the art of your own personal style.
In a few future articles, we will discuss the dos and don'ts of the SEO universe, as well as what the benefits can be for your company. But for today, the thing to keep in mind is that the main reason to have Search Engine Optimization is because you need business. 10 years ago, you could rely on the yellow pages for your business. But in today's market, new customers locate a business through a Web site. If that Web site isn't searchable, then the Web site is really just an in-store brochure for your existing customers, and whatever word-of-mouth they generate.
If you would like to learn more about how St. Louis managed services help you accomplish these goals, contact Forward Slash Technology today.
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