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Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is a term many people may have heard but don't understand very well. As a business owner, you need to understand the practice as it is an enormous benefit to online marketing efforts, and it's important to know what it can do for you. SEO can be difficult to understand, but understanding ensures you are investing in an efficient and affordable SEO company. You'll also know what to expect and when.

• What Is SEO?

  SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization - and it's also worth noting that you say it like 'S.E.O.' rather than 'Seeyo' as I've heard before. Search Engine Optimization is the act of optimizing your website for specific keywords and phrases for the sake of ranking higher in search engines both on-page and externally. On-page optimization involves doing keyword research, writing content, linking between each page of your website and tagging headers, images and coding correctly. External SEO involves building links to your website, blogging, and generating traffic to your website.

• What Can SEO Do for You?

  SEO is just one piece of the Internet Marketing puzzle, but it is an indirect way of getting targeted traffic and leads to your website. It is indirect because most of your traffic will ideally come from 'Organic Search Engine Results' rather than the links you're building to your website. The most important thing to note about SEO is that is is a long-term process and involves a commitment. It can take up to 6 months to start seeing real results since Search Engines need to index new web pages, index inbound links, and then award ranking in turn. It is an effort driven activity, and there is some skill involved: Writing, Knowledge of HTML and ethical SEO practices come into play. By making your website appear on the first pages of Google, Yahoo and Bing for targeted keywords, you can promote your business directly to the people who are already searching for what you offer.

• On-Page SEO Elements

  Keyword research is an important aspect of on-page SEO, so beware of companies trying to get you to the top of the search engines for the wrong keywords. A good, affordable SEO company will focus on keywords that are relevant to your website's individual pages rather than a broad strategy that can take forever to implement. Keyword research is the front-runner to all other SEO techniques such as content writing, altering title tags and meta data, adding image optimization tags, and more. It is also incredibly important that your website is designed and coded with SEO in mind as page load time and clean coding are taken into account by Google bots.

• External SEO Elements

  External SEO is almost entirely content generation and link building. An affordable SEO firm will ensure that you have a diverse link profile pointing from relevant websites. Google likes credible websites, so a firm that is linking from spammy or porn websites is not the company you want doing your optimization. This practice known as Black Hat SEO could potentially harm your website's position and even get you banned from the search engine itself.

Integraphix is devoted to exclusively producing effective SEO and internet marketing strategies by offering comprehensive SEO diagnostics in addition to keyword research reports, ranking reports, and effective link building and content creation techniques. Integraphix offers internal optimization, external optimization and other web marketing services including blog and article management for small businesses in Chicago and across the US.

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