An article looking at what SEO is and why it is so important to drive traffic to a website, and what can happen if there is no SEO targeted text within a website.

Today the Internet is used by millions of people the world over, and it is one the best mediums for communication available. Virtually every topic in the world has a website or page devoted to it, with some topics having millions relating to them. It is easy enough to create and publish a website as there are tools available that will practically make the website for you. However, once your website has been made and published the next step is getting people to actually

visit it and this can be the challenge for many website owners.

So the question is asked "How do I get visitors to my website?" There are various tricks and tools a person can employ to target traffic to their website, many of which are frowned upon by the Internet community. Probably the best way of ensuring a steady stream of visitors to your website is through clever SEO. SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is a way in which the wording contained within the text of a website enables it to be highly ranked when words contained in it are put into a search engine.

Every time a person uses the Internet and a search engine they need first need to decide what it is they are looking for and will then type this into the search engine to begin the search. Once this has been done a list of websites that have the words relevant to the search in it will be displayed. There is usually a short description of the website underneath each entry on the list, and the person using the Internet will then click onto which website seems to be the best looking one for them. SEO is used when writing the content for websites and can either make or break the rankings of a website.

Sometimes the content of a website might be highly informative and relevant for a person wishing to read up on a certain subject, however, due to poor SEO it will be ranked low, and as a result will not appear on the first few pages of a search. This leads to the website being ignored. After all a person looking for something on the Internet will not want to trawl through hundreds of websites in order to find what they are looking for. Instead they rely on the search engine they are using to provide them with a list of the best sites and more often than

not will click into one of the top 5 sites presented by the search.

SEO is a way of using keywords that are related to the topic within the body of text contained on a website in order for search engines to pick up on them. It is not only a specific keyword that can be used, phrases are often used too. For instance, if you were looking to find out more about acupuncture on the Internet and typed ‘acupuncture’ into your search engine it is likely that not only would that word be used several times within the text on the top listed website, but also phrases containing it. Such phrases could be ‘acupuncture clinics’ or

‘acupuncture doctors’ etc.

As shown SEO is an important way of using certain words or keywords in order to maximise the traffic to a website by ensuring that it is highly ranked in searches. Without the use of SEO a website can be totally overlooked in searches and as a result get no traffic to it. This is not what a webmaster wants and many will pay particular attention to the SEO on the sites.