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Google views each link to your site from another site as a vote for your website. The more votes, the more important your website must be. quality content on other websites is good practice to set yourself apart from the rest of the pack as a leader in your field while branding your compa- ny. Of course along with providing the public with content they can use, you want to add links within your content to yourwebsite (known as link building or backlinks).This is extremely impor- tant because backlinks are known to be amajor factor in Google's algorithmfor ranking you higher in their SERPS (search engine results pages). Google views each link to your site fromanoth- er site as a vote for your website. The more votes, the more important your website must be. Off-site optimization will require assistance from all profes- sionals—an SEO professional and mar- keter for their writing abilities and a webmaster for creating HTML code for backlinks. It's important your writings provide useful information to keep people clicking through to your web- site. Here are some of the basic steps covered in off-site optimization: Link Building – A link from another website to yours is like a vote for you; the more votes the better. Links to your website are also weighted highly in search engine algorithms. Social Media – Stay actively engaged in socialmedia. A buzz about yourwebsite can grab Google's attention. Blogs – Use a blog to build a communi- ty by offering an added service while creating links to your website. Guest Blogger – Be a guest blogger on other websites to show you are a leader in your industry while building back- links. Product Feed –Create feeds of your products and submit them to compari- son shopping engines. Directories – Submit your website to directories. Directories offer another link to your website and provide cus- tomers another way to reach you. And there you have it,an overview of basic SEO in a compressed format. Again, if the list looks a little intimidat- ing, don't worry. As long as you have the right people working on your web- site, they will know how to put the blocks together. Setup Is Done. What Next? Remember,once all the pieces are set in place, it is important that you stay active in driving traffic to your website (off-site optimization) and continue to update content on yourwebsite (on-site optimization). Search engines prefer to keep active websites with fresh content and current information higher in their search engine results pages (SERPS) because that's what your customers want. There are a lot of resources available online to help you learn more about SEO and, believe it or not, even Google offers advice on SEO. As secretive as it is about its algorithms, Google does offer a lot of guidance on what you can do to run a successful website. It also has a tendency to drop subtle hints here and there; you just need to know what to listen out for.The list below includes great sources for learning more about SEO. Google Webmaster Tools: http://support.google.com/webmaster s/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35291 SEOMOZ: http://www.seomoz.org/beginners- guide-to-seo Google Knol: http://knol.google.com/k/seo-basics# (Google is discontinuing their Knol program so read this quickly)! Search Engine Land: http://searchengineland.com/guide/wh at-is-seo Search Engine Starter Guide by Google (PDF Document - A little dated but it has a lot of great information): http://static.googleusercontent.com/ex ternal_content/untrusted_dlcp/www.g oogle.com/en/us/webmasters/docs/sea rch-engine-optimization-starter- guide.pdf u SUPER- HEATED MEETS SUPER- FAST. PowerSteam™ Counter Steamer vulcanequipment.com DONE TO PERFECTION. © 2011 Vulcan March/Apr il 201 2 31