Since SEO (search engine optimization) involves many ways to help you get noticed, as a consumer you should be aware of exactly what you are getting for your money. First, you will need to have a baseline run to determine where and how much traffic your site is generating. This is a detailed report that should also have information on what keywords are working for you right now. They may not be what you think. These keywords are critical to generate the coveted organic traffic that the SEO techniques will increase.

For instance, we worked on a site for a remote resort in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. We initially assumed that “hiking” would be the best keyword since hikers frequent this resort. However, after further analysis, “trout fishing” brought in the most traffic to the site. The resort is situated on a lake with terrific fishing. We this in mind we changed our keyword strategy and increased traffic 50%.

There are two main parts to SEO; on page and off page. On page is making your web pages friendly to the spiders that the search engines send to crawl your site. This is the keywords, Meta tags and descriptions, optimal keyword density on your pages. By the way, if you have a nice flash site that looks real pretty, beware – the spiders look for content. If you wonder why you are not getting organic traffic… without words to find, the spiders will have no way of finding you. Quite the tough challenge for any on page SEO optimization.

Once you have your key phrases, you professional will now do the off page and go local. You’ll get listed in the local search engines. Now comes the fun part. The SEO expert will use a myriad of techniques including press releases, article marketing and link marketing all designed to get you noticed with more targeted traffic. Web 2.0 methods are also becoming more popular for businesses however, this can be a two edged sword. With YouTube and Twitter you can provide content in close to real time… as long as the message is favorable. Your digital footprint should be monitored to insure your reputation stays pristine.

Article by Rich Begley, Marketing Manager with siteinflux.com For a free comprehensive analysis of your website visit siteinflux.com Expanding Your Digital Footprint – One Step at a Time