!: Increasing Your Website Traffic With Search Engine Optimization

Yesterday I participated in a webinar about Search Engine Optimization, or SEO. I had never heard of the term until I received the notice. Several days beforehand, however, I began to worry. Computer science is rife with jargon and I wondered if I would understand anything. Would any of this information be useful?

Logging in was easy and the session went well. Thanks to the two hearing aids I wear, I was able to hear the presenters. As the computer screens changed and the points progressed, I came to a stunning realization. I understood most of the jargon! This understanding may be due to the fact that I write for several websites and am familiar with terms like "key words" and "long tail."

Taking Action

After the hour-long session ended, I continued to think about it. I brainstormed on how I could apply the points to my website and article writing. The next morning I acted on the information I learned. First, I posted a tweet about a presentation I am giving in June. Then I posted the same information on Facebook. Replies started to appear on the Internet within seconds.

I was astonished. Comments are still coming in and these results led me to LinkedIn, where I posted the information again.

The tutorial taught me the importance -- and the power -- of Search Engine Optimization. An hour-long course isn't enough, so I researched the topic on the Net. SEO is a massive topic and reading about it for hours can cause digital eye strain. If you're interested in this topic, I recommend two resources, the "Google Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide," posted on the Google Webmaster Central website, and a "List of the Best and Worst Practices for Designing a High Traffic Website," posted on webcpmts.com website.

To save paper and ink I printed out the Google document in booklet form.Reading and understanding this document will take some time. The checklist is easier to use because it ranks key words according to their effectiveness, with the numeral three as the highest score. Some of the keywords actually have minus ratings.

Results

The plot thickens. A man with a relatively new website emailed me and asked if I would write an article for him. In return, he would post a link to my website and he asked if I would consider posting a link to his. Before I replied, I learned more about this person on the Net and, since he was legitimate, accepted his offer. I will write the article in a few days.

I just received a request to speak at the local college, which may, or may not, be the result of my tweet, Facebook, and LinkedIn posts. Then I did something I never thought I would do and emailed an industry contact, a licensed social worker I had never met, and told her about my forthcoming books.

Learning more about Search Engine Optimization will help me in the long run, and I think it will help you. But my problem, the same problem people of my age share, is that we were trained to be modest. We didn't talk about ourselves or tout our accomplishments because that would be in poor taste. How times have changed. Today, promotion is a "given," a component of marketing.

Future Plans

I have also changed. Participating in the webinar was a wake-up call and, in less than a day, I implemented the main points of the presentation. Now I'm focusing on three specific points: creating explanatory phrases for Internet searches, stating the point of my article in different, but related words, and adding bold headings to make reading easier.

There's no doubt in my mind that SEO will increase my Internet listings and website traffic. Are you SEO savvy? If not, now is the time!

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