SEO continues to command attention

Businesses that are easy to find through simple searches on websites like Google, Yahoo and Bing often see higher traffic and increased online sales. Managing online rankings is a top priority for many organizations across all industries. With regular updates being made to search engine algorithms, businesses need to keep abreast of the latest trends that may help them out-rank their competition.

Numerous leading marketing experts in the United States project search engine optimization (SEO) to be an invaluable asset to have for years to come - especially with mobile search becoming a daily activity for many consumers. Businesses can either outsource their SEO practices to stand-alone organizations or employ professionals of their own. When developing an in-house SEO team, a company needs to create a wide array of positions to tend to various tasks such as link building jobs, copywriting jobs, editing and proofreading jobs. These workers are invaluable to the SEO process, and attempting to improve online rankings without them won't be easy.

According to oDesk, between November 2011 and December 2011 there were approximately 40,017 open SEO jobs in the United States. The large number reflects the demand for these workers, as businesses are willing to open up their budgets and bring on the top talent to improve their SEO.

In January 2012, Google received 66.2 percent of all explicit core searches, which exclude contextually driven queries that do not reflect specific user intent to interact with the search results. Bing saw 15.2 percent and Yahoo! received 14.1 percent of views, reports comScore.

It is safe to say that business owners who want to make the biggest impact online and increase their search rankings will want to focus most of their efforts toward Google. Today, people turn to Google for answers to their questions by instinct. Ranking high on any given search gives that business some additional credibility.

Organizations that are prepared to tackle the challenges presented by evolving SEO practices need to bring on professionals with the necessary skills to adapt to Google's ever changing algorithms. These people need to be able to construct creative and unique content that is informative and fresh. Furthermore, each article, blog post, tweet, Facebook status, YouTube video description and online newsletter need to incorporate specific keywords that drive visitors to their content. Failing to perform the basics and neglecting to employ the right people will pose potential threats to the financial stability of an organization, as weak SEO practices can potentially prevent a business from showing up in a search at all.

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