IT Careers Explained – Search Engine Optimization (SEO/ Internet Marketing)
Websites have become an integral part of the smallest and largest of businesses. A few years ago most people would find products and services through yellow pages, with the advent of internet most of the search is now happening on the internet. A few years ago the biggest businesses would put up big advertisements in yellow pages and telephone directories to get the most business leads.
Today a lot of people are searching for products and services on the internet and are able to find the best providers and the best prices by searching on the internet. For example, if someone wants to find a hotel in Bangalore all he has to do is go on a search engine (google, yahoo etc) and search for a hotel in Bangalore. The user will display all the hotels that have a web site, with their photographs, tariffs and user reviews. This was perfect 5-7 years ago when only a small number of companies had websites but today almost everyone has a website. Today if you search for a hotel in Bangalore you will get more than 5000 listings in Google. So, in this case, the question is whose website will be displayed first.
The art and science of bringing a certain website on the top of search engine listing are called Search Engine Optimization (SEO). SEO is the active practice of optimizing a web site by improving internal and external aspects in order to increase the traffic the site receives from search engines. In laymen terms the work performed to bring a certain site in the top of every site search is called SEO. For example, think of Google search engine as the yellow pages – now a person looking for a hotel might search for a hotel in a lot of different ways – he can search by looking at lodges, hotels, villas, service apartments in Bangalore. To get the most value large companies used to advertise in all of the categories in the yellow pages. In the same way, a hotel website can be found on Google by entering a wide variety of search in Google. “Hotels in Bangalore”, “Budget Hotels in Bangalore”, “Luxury Hotels in Bangalore”. The company that has performed the best SEO on these keywords will get the best ranking in Google search.
The majority of web traffic is driven by the major commercial search engines - Google, Bing and Yahoo!. If your site cannot be found by search engines or your content cannot be put into their databases, you miss out on the incredible opportunities available to websites provided via search - people who want what you have visited your site. Whether your site provides content, services, products, or information, search engines are a primary method of navigation for almost all Internet users. You can also gain traffic by pursuing SEO training course.
Search queries, the words that users type into the search box which contain terms and phrases best suited to your site, carry extraordinary value. Experience has shown that search engine traffic can make (or break) an organization's success. Targeted visitors to a website can provide publicity, revenue, and exposure like no other. Investing in Search Engine Optimization, whether through time or finances, can have an exceptional rate of return.
Why can't the search engines figure out my site without SEO help?
Search engines are always working towards improving their technology to crawl the web more deeply and return increasingly relevant results to users. However, there is and will always be a limit to how search engines can operate. Whereas the right moves can net you thousands of visitors and attention, the wrong moves can hide or bury your site deep in the search results where visibility is minimal. In addition to making content available to search engines, SEO can also help boost rankings so that content that has been found will be placed where searchers will more readily see it. The online environment is becoming increasingly competitive, and those companies who perform SEO will have a decided advantage in visitors and customers.
SEO as a career option
With the advent of every small and large company requiring websites and each site wanting to get the most leads SEO is becoming more and more important. SEO can be learnt and performed by students who are undergoing BA, BCom, BCA, MCA and 12th. Starting salaries depend upon the student’s knowledge but within 1 year students can make upto 12-20,000. We provide SEO Course in Vadodara that is guided by industry experts.
About the Author
Niral Modi is the E. Director at TOPS Technologies Pvt Ltd one of the largest software Training, Outsourcing and Placement Company with offices in Ahmedabad, Baroda, Rajkot, Surat, Navsari, Mehsana, Udaipur, Indore, Bhopal, Jabalpur, Noida. TOPS has provided Job oriented IT training and placements to over 10000 students in ASP.net, PHP, Java, Web Design, iPhone, Android, Software Testing.
