Why Internet Marketing Does Not Work Without SEO

Search engine

optimization (SEO) should be considered a critical element of any Internet marketing strategy. This is important because there is so much which can be gained from SEO in terms of Internet marketing and advertising. Failure to optimize your website for search engines can result in a considerable loss in terms of free advertising which is essentially gained from ranking well with search engines. This article will provide insight into what SEO is and will explain why Internet marketing requires at least some degree of SEO.

SEO optimization is a strategy in which a website is designed to obtain favorable search engine rankings from popular search engines. This may be achieved in a variety of different ways and optimal SEO strategies combine a variety of different strategies to complete one well orchestrated SEO campaign. There are several elements to consider when attempting to optimize your website for search engines. This may include keyword density, prominence, META tags, titles and inbound links. Keyword density is one of the most common SEO strategies and essentially involves using relevant keywords often in the content of a website to demonstrate the relevance of these keywords to the website. This is important because search engines are likely to reward websites with optimal keyword densities with favorable search engine rankings in an effort to provide Internet users with the most relevant websites for particular search terms.

The prominence of keywords should also be considered. This includes how close the keywords are placed to the beginning of the website. The common mistake with this strategy is to believe the first opportunity to incorporate keywords is in the first line of visible text on the webpage. This is not true because search engines crawl the code of a website as opposed to the visible content on the website. This means there are multiple opportunities to incorporate relevant keywords long before the actual visible content on the website. This might include the code for the title as well as the META tags. Business owners who realize the potential for incorporating keyword into the code gain an advantage over competitors who only incorporate keywords into the content on their website.

Another area of concern which is very important for those who are interested in SEO is inbound links. Inbound links are essentially links which reside on other websites and direct traffic to your website. These links are considered important because many search engines place a value on inbound links because they are essentially an example of one website recommending another website. However, when obtaining inbound links it is important to do so from other websites which rank well with search engines because many search engines consider the rank of the original website when determining the value of the inbound link.

Now that we have briefly explained some of the main concept of SEO, we will illustrate why it is important to optimize your website in the first place. SEO is so important because most Internet users highly value the results of search engines and are likely to only visit to ranking websites when they search for a particular keyword. Internet users trust search engines to serve the most relevant content first and are therefore not likely to visit websites which do not fall on the first or second page of search results. This means websites which rank well essentially are receiving a great deal of free advertising from search engines that place their website in a key position. Website owners who do not invest time into optimizing their websites miss out on a great deal of potential web traffic.

Creating Attributions: The Key to Explaining Behaviour

This post

goes over an example of the different theories that influence the behavior depending on the different kinds of information available. 

Attribution Theory deals with the ways people infer causes of behaviour. The theory explains our appraisals about the reasons for behaviour and how these appraisals influence how we evaluate communication.  This makes it an important theory that is relevant to many aspects of interpersonal communication.  Without attributions we would be living life without our own thoughts on social behaviour. We would not be able to explain behaviours with respect to situations.   

 We can make personality and situational attributions.   For example:  An individual tells an acquaintance that the latest Die Hard Movie is fantastic and recommends he go and see it.  Does his friend follow his recommendation?  He will come to a conclusion that makes him question whether this movie is any good.  He may assume that his friend liked this movie because he likes all movies.  He may also assume that it was a hot day and his friend enjoyed the air-conditioning of the theatre. 

Subjective biases will influence his perception of the movie.  This is referred to as ‘Naïve Realism.’  Whatever his perception of his friends advice it will seem real and enable him to make a decision about whether to see the movie.  This perception will come from certain auditory cues he picks up from his friends explanation and visual cues he has seen about the movie.  This will occur without him even realising it! 

His thinking will not all be clinical and automatic.  He is also capable of evaluating the suitability of the movie in a clinical, mindful way.  This mindless and mindful thinking is referred to as dual processing.  When deciding whether to see the movie his perception will involve three steps:

1.    Attention and identification,

2.    controlled categorization;

3.    And Personalisation. 

During the first stage, his subconscious will focus on his goals and motivations.  He may ask himself if he likes the genre of the movie or if he even wants to see a movie.  During the second stage, he will take a more systematic evaluation and draw upon his expectation of the movie.  Finally, he will compare his own interests and the interests of his friend.  Upon completing these three stages he will be ready to make a decision about whether to see the movie.

To conclude, this post has examined the set of behaviours that someone goes through when they decide whether to see a movie on the advice of a friend.  Three important and relevant interpersonal communication theories have been discussed.  They are Attribution Theory, Naïve Realism and Subjective bias.