Business & Personal Finance

If you own a small business or you're looking into starting one, then an important part of being visible online is ensuring that your search engine optimization (SEO) is well designed and planned out. According to Dictionary.com, SEO is "the methods used to boost the ranking or frequency of a website in results returned by a search engine, in an effort to maximize user traffic to the site." For example, when I conduct a search within a search engine, such as Google, for something along the lines of "Colombian restaurants in Toronto," the websites with SEOs properly designed in favour of those search terms will pop up first. As a result, those websites get immediate attention from users and, consequently, increase their chances of earning business.

SEO can be considered an art and a science. In fact, there are companies dedicated to helping other companies or individuals implement proper SEO into their websites, as it plays such an important role in driving business. This, however, should not intimidate you! The reality is that anyone with decent technological skills can begin implementing proper SEO into their business websites with a bit of research and homework. This is done by applying proper design principles such as proper use of keywords in your website, inclusion of quality content and proper tagging of images. There's a lot more to it though, so I'll let you begin your homework by showcasing some library resources to help you.

Electronic Resources 

Lynda

Lynda.com is a treasure trove of 3,500+ professional video tutorials on a whole range of subjects including web design, photography, software development, business skills, project management, SEO and much, much more. The videos and "learning paths" can be quite lengthy but it's a worthwhile investment as they're chock full of valuable information. A great feature is that it actually tracks your progress so you can stop at any point and it will continue from where you left off. Videos are regularly updated and segments added to ensure that the information is relevant and up to date. This is definitely one of my favourite databases!

Safari Tech & Business Books Online

If you enjoy learning more through reading than watching videos, then Safari Tech & Business Books Online is a great resource for you. Get instant access to (you guessed it) technology and business-related books instantly online, though they also include videos! Doing a quick search in the database for "SEO" or "search engine optimization" will reveal countless textbooks and videos on the subject. The database is very intuitive as well and each book is easily navigable.

Books

Some books for you to pick up at your local branch packed with information on SEO!

As more and more people rely on mobile devices to look up information, and search engines are integrated further into our devices, proper SEO design becomes more important with each passing day. Keep in mind that SEO does evolve and the formulas that search engine providers use to rank their results do get tweaked periodically. The core principles of proper SEO will, however, continue to apply. Make sure that you're applying proper SEO to your business website!