[edit] Introduction To Search Engine Optimization
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is one of the most important parts of any web business, and as such is vital to the success of your website. Having a comprehensive knowledge of SEO is an extremely good weapon to have in your arsenal, and this article will take you through some of the most important SEO practices.
SEO is relatively easy to define; it basically means the attempt to put your website at the top of search engine results for any number of different keywords. There are numerous different ways to do this and with so many websites currently indexed on the major search engines (Google recently indexed its trillionth web site) you need to know as many as possible in order to succeed.
Search engine algorithms (the processes by which they organize web sites) have been studied for many years and because of their mathematical nature, are reasonably predictable. In this way, we know what search engines are looking for, and often they are some of the simplest things.
[edit] Search Engine Marketing
SEO is more about marketing than any other aspect of creating your website; you need to know who your target audience is and what sort of search terms they will be using to find websites like yours. The words typed into a search engine are called Keywords, and these are what your website should be targeting to increase the number of people who find you. Keyword research (the process of defining which keywords you are going to target) is vitally important, and you should spend a fair amount of time working through it. There are some great tools out there to help you with keyword research, the best of which is Overture, which will tell you how many people have searched for a term on Yahoo in the last month. Generally speaking, if you times Overture’s numbers by 10, you will know (approximately) the amount of searches performed on Google, so it is a very useful tool for finding out what keywords you should be targeting. Recently long tail keywords have become an important part of getting traffic from search engines; this is when the search terms that a user types in are full phrases or sentences, which means that the results will be extremely targeted. Targeting long tail keywords will allow you to reach a very specific audience and the traffic you generate from the search engines will be extremely valuable.
[edit] Using Keywords
Depending on what stage the development of your website is in, you need to try and develop your site around your chosen keywords. For example, when writing the content you should be using your main keywords as often as possible (without “keyword stuffing”, which is punished by search engines). Keyword density is just one of many factors the algorithms take into account when they look at your site. They will also be looking at your use of Title and Header tags which will tell the search engines about the main theme of the content on your page, so it’s very important to put your main keywords in the title of your page, and use other keywords in your headings.
There are many other “on-page” factors which you should be considering, such as URL structure and Meta tags. On Page optimization is very important but is really very easy to do, and so you should be able to build your website using good SEO techniques very quickly.
[edit] On and Off Page Optimization
Off Page Optimization is another form of SEO which is probably more important to search engines than On Page Optimization. It is all about the way other sites link to yours and the different ways your content is distributed. Having lots of inbound links is vitally important to the search engine ranking of your site, and this is where your content and marketing techniques are put under the spotlight.
If you have naturally good content and a well marketed site, other sites will link to you in abundance and your site will soon find itself at the top of the search engine rankings. On the other hand, if your content is poor and few people are interested by it, getting inbound links to your website will be incredibly difficult.
The title tag is one of the most importatnt tags to worry about. The title must contain keywords in it and at the same time must be interesting. When a visitor is browsing the search engine results, even if it is placed near the top of the page a visitor may not click it if its not interesting. Together with a well formed title that includes keywords is the most effective way to craft your title.
[edit] Headings
Use keywords in h1 tags and don't forget to make them descriptive to capture the visitors attention. Try to structure your articles heirarchy by the top down approach. Do NOT overuse the h1 tags. Here is a tutorial for Headlines.
[edit] Keywords
When writing your article it's always important to use keyworgs through out the article. Keywords placed at the top of the article should be in bold face using the strong tag. Keywords should also exist at the bottom or towards the end of the article also, If possible place them in bold too. Pay attention to keyword density too. You can't have too many keywords and you can't have to little. The best way to measure the right keywords density is to use a keyword density toll. Do a basic search on a subject that interests you and choose the first website that is displayed and run a keyword density tool on it. You will need the url of the website.
Do not forget to make your content interesting and useful because visitors and other web masters may link to it which will increase your page rank.
[edit] Incoming Links
Making your website popular on the internet is important also. It not only increases your page rank it brings free targeted traffic to your website. Websites that no incomeing links usually rank very low on search engine query results. The problem with building links is how do you build your links without having any. There are many severices out there that will submit your link to several internet directories for free. The top directories are Yahoo and dmoz. Yahoo is a yearly paid subscription service. It is not guaranteed that your site will even be listed in their directory either. But, web masters that have managed to get their site listed says it's worth it. dmoz is free but it's very difficult to get listed and takes a long time.
If you can find a website that is related to yours and get your link placed on their site is the best way to go. This will drastically increase your traffic and Google page rank. The best way of getting your link placed on other websites is to email them directly and ask them. 90% of the time they will say no but all you need is just a few quality links to get you started. Also, make sure the page your link is on only has a few out going links within it. Otherwise, Google degrades the quality of the link. If at all possible attempt to get your link on a web page that has a high page rank, it will benefit your page rank.
You can also ask other web masters for reciprical links. Reciprical links is the idea of both web masters placing each others links on their website. Googlw will degrade these kind of links but it will at least get your website noticed.
[edit] Anchor Text
Anchor Text are the letters in a link. meshplex1234 - this is a link and the letters "meshplex1234" are the anchor text. When people link to your website it is important what anchor text they use on the link. For example, if your website is about Rolex watches, then it is a good idea to use those types of keywords in your anchor text. If you manage to get many incoming links then you can use many combinations of anchor text such as, "Timex Watches", "Rolex Watches", "Expensive Watches", "Gold Watches", etc. You get the drift.
[edit] Page Rank
Your Google page rank is determined by the quality and quantity of links to your webpage. The page rank is attached to a particular webpage NOT a website. It is a rating from 0 to 10 with 10 being the best. It does not rank a website it only ranks individual web pages. If you manage to get your link placed on a webpage it is important to make sure the page is relevant to your website this will drastically increase your page rank. Don't ask for incoming links that is not related to your site because it will not increase your page rank and it will not bring targetted traffic which is a waste of time. The fewer outgoing links will increase the quality of your link. Usually, links from edu and gov domains are very choices to start. They can get your PR 1-3 easily.
- Spam - Do not put spam on your website
- Content - fix all spelling and gramtical errors
- Errors - Fix all html errors
- Font - Don't use the same color font as your background
- Words - Don't use profanity
- Meta Tags - Use meta tags wisely
- whois - Make sure your whois information is NOT private
[edit] Age of Web Site
Older more established websites rank higher on search engine results. This is why it is important to register your name and publish your website ASAP. Websites are born by the thousands everyday and as fast as they are born they die. After your site survives 24 months you will start to notice more traffic coming from search engines.
[edit] SEO Tools
[edit] Conclusion
One of the most important SEO lessons is to make sure your content is enjoyable and will generate interest from other websites, without this your website may well fall into obscurity. Being an expert in your particular field is vital to creating content which will be enjoyed not only by visitors, but also by search engines. If you can use technical language and jargon during your articles, and offer extremely good advice, your content will be well ranked for very specific keywords.
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[edit] External Links
Search Engine Marketing Company
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