A few things you may not know about SEO

Search engine optimization is something every business, large and small, must be doing to survive these days. It can truly mean the difference between just surviving and really thriving. But, there are a few things you probably really don’t know about SEO that can make that difference for you.

Viral isn’t always good but bad strategies are always bad

Everyone seems to strive for that golden ring of having a video or some written content going viral. The reality of viral content is that it happens so rarely but excellent content will always get noticed one way or another. Much of what goes viral tends to be unpredictably random. How many crazy and cute cats can there be? To predict what may go viral is a waste of your time. Focus on quality. Focus on solving a problem for your customers and bringing added value to their lives. This will do more than anything else to boost your SEO marketing efforts.

Bad SEO efforts will always be bad. Running with old and questionable black hat strategies will hurt you even though you may think you found a short cut. Quality is everything. That can’t be stressed enough and there are no shortcuts to quality. You either are dedicated to it or your going down.

Your links must be above the fray and being relevant is relevant

Inbound links are some of the best SEO marketing weapons you have. However, you just can’t grab links for the sake of link building. Inbound links with authority issues, or if they are highly suspect sites, will only hurt and eventually kill your SEO efforts. Be extremely picky about who you want linking to you. It reflects on your brand and your reputation.

Everything about your efforts must be relevant to who you are and what you do. If not, your search efforts will suffer. It’s tempting to add racy or provocative keywords that have nothing to do with you just to drive traffic but people who get to your site through them will be disappointed and not a little bit angry. You will, also, anger the search gods.

Finally, you must be optimized for mobile search. It is your best weapon for local and organic search. Well over 60% of all searches are now being done on mobile devices. If your site is not optimized yet, then you are already way behind your competitors who are.

-Written by Kevin Sawyer