The odds of any business surviving in today?s market are directly proportional to the amount of paying customers they can get. Online business is no exception and in order to get paying customers, you are going to need a boatload of traffic. Not just any old traffic will do, however, you need focused, targeted traffic.

When you are talking targeted traffic, you are referring to people who are actually looking for what you have on your site. And if you have what they are looking for, the odds of them pulling out the credit card goes way up. SEO, which is Search Engine Optimization is the how you make your page not only visible to the search engines, but visible to the searchers as well. It is a number of known tasks with a lot of trial and error that is done with the goal in mind to get to the top of the SERP, or the Search Engine Results Page. You can have the million dollar wonder site, but if no one can find it will do you no good at all.

When people are looking for something on the internet they will type a word or word phrase into the search engine. These words are called keywords, and they are how people find your website. SEO is the process of getting your webpage to the first page of the SERP, where the odds are much greater of getting clicked than say, on the 873rd page of the results. The ultimate goal is the number one spot, of course, but getting into the top 10 will make a real difference in your bottom line.

You need to have more than just people getting to your site; you still need a good solid campaign to convert them from potential customers to paying customers. This is a core part of the sales process, but you certainly need to get people to your webpage before you even have a chance to convince them to buy your product.

Keep in mind that SEO is more than just keywords. There are a few points to remember that will help customers choose your site over the others returned in a search. Metadata tags do not have the importance in SEO that they once had, but search engines will still use the description tag in the heading section of your html code in the search results to tell what your webpage is all about. If this tag is not there, the search engines will use the first few sentences on your webpage as the description. It is important to take your time and write a description, as well as the first few sentences, that will draw people to want to click on the link to your site.

Can SEO be an effective way to get customers to your site? Yes it can, and is a proven method of long term targeted traffic generation. Remember that the big search engines are not going to hand over a plan that tells you exactly what they are looking for to place your page in the number one SERP spot, but requires some know-how and a lot of testing. There are basic proven methods that work, and the best part about SEO is that once the initial work is finished, the traffic and the paying customers are all free, which means less marketing costs and more profits.

Justin Harrison is an internationally recognised Internet Marketing expert who provides world class Search Engine Optimization to website owners. For more information visit: http://www.seorankings.co.za