Small businesses usually don’t have a lot of money to spend on advertising. If you’re that small online business, your number one priority has to be a strong understanding of SEO and recruiting a team that can deliver a niche SEO campaign. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, and it’s how Google goes through your page to help it figure out how to rank your website among millions of others.

Your Website Should Make Front Page News

Depending on whether or not you tailor your website for SEO, your page can either be on the first search result page or on the 15th. Considering that most people don’t search past page one (maybe two), it’s very important that you do what you can to optimize your web copy. If you’re a small business, you can’t afford to be anywhere past page one in search engine rankings; if you’re past page two, you might as well close up shop right now.

Search Engine Crawlers Define the Web

Think of search engines such as Yahoo, Google and Bing as not just websites – they’re websites that give you information with the touch of a button. Ever consider how they get and sort through all that information? Search engines have engine crawlers. Think of the virus-like robots in The Matrix that swim and search through the Matrix. Once they find something of interest, they lock on and begin to analyze that piece of new information. Search engine crawlers are very similar. If you have a new page or an existing site, they search through it for a number of elements to see how relevant your site is among millions of others. This is also one of the reasons it’s very important to continue updating and optimizing your webpage.

Unfortunately, most people make the error of thinking that you just need to stuff your website with keywords, which is a huge mistake. Slamming your page with words makes search engines view your page as spam and leads your audience to question your professionalism. On the other hand, having just a sprinkle of relative keywords isn’t enough either. You need to go beyond a search engine “friendly” website and reach for a search engine “optimized” website.

How Keywords and Tags Unlock Higher Page Ranking

It’s simple. Keywords lead to increased visibility for keyword searches. But rather than just thinking about the general keywords your site offers relevancy for, consider fully researching which keywords offer the highest ranking and do a cross comparison for what Google is currently ranking your page for versus your competition. Stringent keyword analysis is the first step to an effective SEO campaign.

Once you’ve mastered keywords, think of meta tags. A meta tag is an HTML tag located in the “head” of your web pages. Its main purpose is to offer search engines a summary of your webpage. Think of your last internet search and the couple sentences of copy that accompanied every search result, and there you have your meta tag.

Meta tags instruct search engines on what to do with your web page, how to file it and how to rank it. The more relevant your meta tag, the more relevant your page. You can harness the potential of meta tags by using a meta keyword generator, creating a content keyword structure and making sure you’re targeting the right keywords.

Using these tools will help drive traffic to your website; better yet, it will help drive the right type of traffic that in turn leads to increased sales, increased ad worth and a higher page ranking.

It’s not enough just to have traffic, but to have traffic that stays on your page for a while, explores it and ultimately converts to a user. Using the right set of SEO tools ensures that you achieve this and turn your website into prime internet property in the eyes of discriminating search engines.

Author Bio:

by Shireen Qudosi

Shireen Qudosi is Benchmark Email's Online Marketing Specialist and Small Business Advocate. An Orange County based writer, Shireen specializes in online marketing and public relations. She has written for over 75 publications and has launched nine successful new media campaigns to date. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, Denver Post, the Oklahoman and Green Air Radio, among others.