How Online Content Affects Traffic Hits

Content is king. Content determines how visible your information will appear when individuals conduct a search for information. When individuals submit a phrase into a search engine, what appears are websites that contain relevant content regarding the entered phrase. You may have information on your website that relates to the word or phrase entered, but your website has some issues that prevent the search engine from labeling it as such. Instead, the search engine places you low on the results page and thus creates a low amount of visible traffic to your site.

Now for websites that sell products, relevant content and proper searches conducted by its users determine how successful the business will be. Before online websites can master the art of marketing or web design, they must understand the basic principles of SEO and how these features affect traffic.

Search Engine Basics and SEO

Search engines use algorithms to determine what each webpage on a website is about and where the entered keywords appear on the page. Search engine’s do not sift through the HTML code, but instead, read the content that appears on a website. Incorrect HTML code can confuse a search engine into thinking the content is actually code. When this occurs, the search engine will omit vital content from its search indexes that can potential cost the website thousands of traffic hits.

For individuals unfamiliar with the benefits a search engine provides, an SEO company can help users understand issues within their HTML code as well as reformat content. When users hear the term “SEO friendly” it refers to how well formatted content is for a search engine. All online content appears within the indexes of a search engine, and if that content uses poor HTML coding, then the information will generate low traffic hits.

Search Engines and Advertisement

Search engines help users locate information, but over the years, search engines also became a tool for how advertisers marketed to its customer base. Each time a user types a phrase into an engine, automatically the search engine will generate ads using the typed phrase. These ads are paid for by companies looking to generate more sales and potential traffic. Known as pay-per-click, or PPC for short, these ads serve another important factor in how traffic is generated.

Each time a user clicks on a PPC ad, the company who is advertising the ad must pay a fee to the search engine, typically less than ten cents. Now this may seem like a small fee, but when hundreds of people are clicking on the ad it can get pricy. However, companies may not understand the types of words users are entering in order to find their website. This causes companies to loss hundreds of dollars a year on ads that use incorrect words.

PPC management, a service included with most SEO companies, aims to ensure companies use the best keywords to match the searches individuals conduct. These searches will increase traffic, but also help customers who are looking for a company’s product or information, rather than a person who found his way onto the site on accident.

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