Have you heard stories about legendary online entrepreneurs who hit it big after obtaining a #1 rank in several popular search engines? You almost certainly wondered what it could take for you to make that happen elusive #1 spot in the search engine result pages (SERPs). SEO ( SEO ) plays an essential role in ensuring that your business gets the perfect search engine ranking, that may lead to increased sales for the online company.

What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?

Search engine optimization may be the process of modifying website content and meta-information to boost the search engine ranking of the page. Meta-information includes certain HTML tags (title, heading, emphasized text, keyword and description meta-tags), plus the internal (links between pages on the same site) and external (links between pages on different sites) link structure of an internet site.

Impact of High Search Engine Rank on Sales

Internet general market trends estimates that between 70% and 90% of online shoppers use search engines to locate a specific product or service. Let's examine factors that influence sales to see how effective search engine optimization can boost your revenues.

Three metrics must forecast online sales: the average ticket, the conversion rate, and the amount of web site traffic:

* The average ticket may be the amount of money spent by way of a customer on an average transaction. Computer and electronics stores have high average tickets (hundreds or thousands of dollars), while bookstores have low average tickets (tens of dollars).

* Web Site traffic is measured by the amount of site visitors, typically expressed as the number of page views monthly.

* Conversion rate is the number of sales divided by the amount of page views monthly, expressed as a percentage.

Let's look at a good example. THE BEST Taupe Widget (UTW) store has an average ticket of $25, a conversion rate of 2%, and gets 5,000 page views monthly. The estimated monthly sales are $2,500 ($25 average ticket * 0.02 conversion rate expressed as a decimal * 5,000 page views per month). Achieving a high search engine rank will increase the amount of page views, and for that reason increase sales. In this example, if traffic doubles to 10,000 page views a month, UTW's monthly sales should (approximately) double aswell (to $5,000).

Keep in local SEO that a higher search engine rank will create a measurable increase in traffic only when there is significant marketplace interest in taupe widgets and your web site appears in the initial thirty search engine results.

However, search engine optimization won't produce measurable results when there is very little demand for taupe widgets. The #1 spot in search engine result pages is not particularly impressive if only two people search for "taupe widgets" each month.Role of Keywords in Search Engine Optimization

Keywords are words or phrases users provide to search engines to find information. Se's examine page content to determine whether a specific page is pertinent for a particular search word or phrase. Thus, effective keyword selection is one of the cornerstones of search engine optimization.

Each keyword is seen as a supply (amount of search engine result pages) and demand (number of searches). The easiest way to boost search engine rank would be to select keywords which have favorable supply-demand characteristics; that's, ones with a relatively popular and a comparatively low supply. It is a lot more difficult to boost the search engine position of a page on a high supply, competitive keyword.

Good keywords must be relevant to your product line, plus your line of business. A #1 rank in serach engines for "navy widgets" is worthless in the event that you sell taupe widgets exclusively. A potential customer will find your page, quickly find that you don't sell any navy widgets, and promptly go elsewhere. In effect, the conversion rate for irrelevant search engine hits is very close to zero.

Using Keywords Effectively

Choosing a set of target keywords is the first step in search engine optimization. The second step is using them in your body, title, headings, and meta-tags of a page.

Include the target keywords in the text of the page. Don't overdo it, though --- the keywords should fit smoothly into the surrounding text. Search engines use several ways to detect excessive keyword density, or too many keywords stuffed into hardly any supporting text, and will reduce the rank accordingly. A page has too many keywords if they interfere with the general flow of the text on a page and appearance to be glaringly out of place

The title tag should contain information that describes the page. If you don't operate a multi-national conglomerate that's already children name, your company's name isn't a descriptive title. Most search engines use the title tag as the first line of your listing in the search engine result pages. Strive to make your title tag say "click me" to a potential customer. "Superior taupe widgets - 50% off each day" is a wonderful page title, while "Ultimate Taupe Widgets, Inc." isn't.

Incorporate keywords into the headings on the page, in addition to into emphasized sections (bold or large text). Even though search engines are de-emphasizing descriptive meta-tags, include keywords in them nevertheless. The description meta-tag should have an accurate description of your page, and the keywords meta-tag should contain a set of keywords (separated by commas) that list key concepts mentioned on the page.

Understanding the fundamentals of search engine optimization can be an important first step in creating an optimized, well-positioned internet site.