The first question is "What is it?" - SEO is really a marketing function. It is about getting noticed or even just visible on the internet. The next question is "Do I really need to do this?" - If you want to drive traffic to your site, you do. This is an absolute must for Businesses whether they are home-based or a huge company. If you want to drive traffic to your personal site, this applies as well.
for this purpose, I will focus on Google.
There are some interesting facts that are quite telling. the great majority of "shoppers" looking for goods or services, use the internet, and most of those use Google (nearly 80%). On top of this 90% do NOT go past the first page of searches and 95% do not go past page 3. This means that if your site does not appear in the first search page, your business is not likely to be found. Oddly enough, the "Sponsored Links" along the top and the right draw surprisingly few clicks compared to their location. You can spend a lot of money on these ads, especially if they are PPC (pay-per-click) and based on the bid price for the ppc (you bid against other companies wanting the same spot) and can end up paying a lot for a click based on demand.
With all that said, how do you get to the top? It is all based on your google score. what primarily raises that score is the "preceived" worth of your site. Content isn't the important thing with the exception of a couple rules like the fact the Google doesn't like "Flash" video and a lot of extranious code that some website development products put in like Microsofts Expressions (used to be frontpage). Where your sites worth is developed is primarily through "Back Links" or links pointing back to your site. As the google-bots scour new sites and content, they come across links to your site or its content, it adds to your sites score. It would be nice to rely solely on others to do this, but you need to kick it into gear. you do this by creating content that is useful in some way to others and also brings them back to your site. some ways to do this is:
1. publish articles and post on other free sites (just search "free article posting") and make sure a link back to your site is in the article. even better, publish a partial and have people come to your site to see the whole article.
2. Create a "Blog" on a site other than your business site (that would defeat the marketing potential) and even with a completely different domain name. it is worth the registration of another domain name specific to your blog as it adds google scoring power. Make sure your content is Married to what your site is serving. Don't create a blog on brick laying if your site markets fresh cut flowers!
3. Publish Video! whether it is a Screen capture video, powerpoint converted to video or actual video, get it out on the web. best place is youtube as it is free and Google loves it (They own it). Make sure there is a physical link back to your site (not just text in the video).
Remember, as your material is linked to by others, it has an exponential scoring effect on your main site.
As an example, Joe smith likes collecting widgets and does a search for "rarest widgets" and comes across an article you posted about "the 10 most rare widgets" so he creates a link to that article for his widget fan club, and many of the members do the same. there are now multiple paths back to your "widgets for sale" website via the link in the article you posted and it continues to propagate.
More to Come on SEO....
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