Search Engine Optimization

I am sure you have all seen or heard the term seo and you probably are wondering exactly what it means. Well the actual definition from Wikipedia states the following: search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via “natural” (“organic” or “algorithmic”) search results for targeted keywords. Usually, the earlier a site is presented in the search results or the higher it “ranks”, the more searchers will visit that site. You are probably already scratching your head and saying What? Well to be honest, seo is made up of many different variables that need to be broken down into separate areas to build an effective seo strategy for your website.

The bottom line is you need to develop a strong seo strategy to score high in the search engine Google. You are probably wondering why right now but as you start to learn the process it will become crystal clear that scoring high on Google’s search engine is the bench mark for 95% of all seo strategies. Google provides over 50% of all the search engine traffic. Right know don’t go crazy trying to figure out why just understand that it should be your bench mark for your seo strategy.

There are two classifications of seo that you need to concentrate on. They can be classified as follows: ONLINE, and OFFLINE. Online seo would be the actual construction of your web pages. Don’t get caught up in all the website design tricks that are suppose to score you higher in the search engines, they will only hurt your rating. I have fond out the hard way. I would recommend you design your pages according to Google’s website design guidelines. if you stay within their quality guidelines you will do just fine. One Important NOTE: Do not submit your site to any of the search engines. It has been my experience that is better to let the various search engine crawlers or robots find your site on their own. AND THEY WILL SCAN YOUR SITE IN TIME. You will score higher in the long run. Now Your second strategy should deal with “OFFLINE” seo is the absolute most important.

OFFLINE seo consists of The most important seo strategies to get a higher power ranking on Google and other sites with be from you offline seo strategies. Your OFFLINE seo strategy will consist entirely of “Link building” This is often also called “link popularity”. Your ” link popularity will come from three types of links. “Reciprocal links”, “One way links” and “three way links” One very Important Note: Do not solicit links that have no relation to your website theme. For example if you are selling fishing supplies do not request links from other sites that do not relate to your product, for example, “health products”. Also DO NOT PURCHASE FFA SITE links these links will absolutely kill your power raking on Google. All links should be constructed with proper anchor text. Anchor text is the text inside an HTML link which is displayed to the web user. Anchor text is usually underlined. An HTML link looks like this:

Anchor Text

The Importance of Anchor Text Anchor text is weighted very heavily in the current Google algorithm. The net effect of this is that if many people link to a web page using a set of keywords as anchor text, that page will rank very highly for those keywords.

“Reciprocal links” are when you post a link for another website, and they do the same on their site. These links do not have the significance they once did but they are useful. “One way links” are the most powerful of all the links and they increase your power rating on Google the most, not mention generate a lot of traffic from people clicking on them. One way links are when a website has posted you link on there website but you have not posted a link of their website on your domain. Good examples of one way links are articles that you write that have a link at the end of the article going back to your website, that article directories have posted on their site thus , one way back to your website. Three way links are when you have a agreement with three websites to trade links, the trade is not direct. Site 1 would link with site 3 site three would link to site 2 with your link. Site two would link with site three and site three would link to site one with site 2 link.

In conclusion, Always start your seo strategy developing your “offline” seo strategy first. Create your webpages according to Google’s website design guidelines, paying close attention to their site quality section. Remember do not submit your site to the search engines once you have your pages created. The search engine robots will find your site in do time. After you have your web pages created develop a strategy that includes the three link types reciprocal, one way and three way. Place a lot of effort and concentration into developing a strategy for one way links first. Follow with 3 reciprocal, then three way links. Everyone has a different strategy but I personally focus on one way links for website oldfishinghole.com. Well GOOD LUCK!

Search engine optimization (SEO) are various methods which are used in order to improve the search engine ranking of a website. So what is search engine ranking? This is the position on the list of results which a search engine return for a given keyword.

Why is search engine ranking important?

The higher your site is on the list of search engine result pages (or SERPs), the higher the likelihood that it will be seen; meaning more traffic for you. The most popular search engine, Google features 10 results per page. Most people don’t look past the first page of results – this is why seo is so important. If your page is in the top ten results you will get far more traffic than if you were on later pages.

SEO techniques fall under two broad categories, on-page and off-page.

On Page SEO

These are the things which you can do on your actual site to increase your search engine ranking. This generally involves keywords and their use to let search engines know what the content of your site is about. These techniques include the placement of keywords in metatags, alt tags for images, keywords in your HTML header tags and the actual content of your site.

Off Page SEO

These are also related to keywords usage, as well as the creation of back links. A back link is a link on another website which points to your site and are also called inbound links.

Steps You Can Take To Improve Your SEO

1. Always use keyword and description meta tags.

Every page which is part of your website should have its own unique meta tags. These tags are pieces of HTML code which are found near the top of the page when you are looking at the HTML code of a webpage.

For a keyword meta tag, use a comma separated list of keywords which are relevant to the content of your website. These can be phrases as well as single words; just make sure that they are relevant to your site’s content.

The description meta tag is where you should write a description of your site which is compelling enough to make someone want to visit it. This description is used by search engines (including Google) to describe your site. It is not for the search engine alone, it can also be seen by web users and can get them interested enough to visit.

2. Where there are images on your site, there should always be an alt tag.

An alt(short for alternative text) tag is a piece of HTML code which tells people who have images turned off, are using text only browsers or a screen reader what the image which they cannot view is about. Search engines also use these tags to help them determine the content of your site.

The alt tag should also contain relevant keywords and a description of the image they are replacing. Rather than just placing “header” in your alt tag for a heading image, take this chance to help search engines know the content of your site – for instance “birdbaths” if your website is about birdbaths. Don’t overstuff this tag with keywords though.

3. Use header tags wisely.

The header tags (known as H1, H2, etc.) are looked at search engines to find the important keywords are for your website. You can use style sheets to change the appearance of these tags. Instead, use standard HTML for these headers and not style sheets. Then all you need to do is make sure that these header tags contain relevant keywords – H1 the primary keywords, H2 the secondary and so on.

4. Get backlinks with relevant keywords.

You will want back links. All of the back links you can get. This should be an ongoing process as part of your seo strategy. If you can get a few back links a week, this looks much better than getting 5,000 all at once – since these links will have been bought from a link farm, more than likely. Search engines watch for this kind of activity and penalize pages who use these tactics.

However, there are plenty of other ways to get back links. You can go the traditional route and exchange links with other sites. You can also become active in forums and use your link in your signature. Articles which you write can be submitted to directories, with a link to your site in the resource box. HubPages and Squidoo lenses can be built which include links to your site. You can also start a blog and submit the RSS feed to an aggregator, encouraging readers of your blog to follow suit. Twitter can be used to inform the public whenever you have new content up. These are just a few of the possibilities.

You will also want to come up with some good anchor text for your back links to use when possible. The anchor text is the text which is actually clicked as the link (usually visible by being blue and underlined on a website). Search engines also examine this text to determine the content of your site. Us your main keywords or variations on them – whatever looks more natural on the page while still being relevant to your site. Remember to use appropriate keywords for the specific page on your site which the link points to.

Sometimes you will not be able to specify the anchor text to be used. But when you can, you shouldn’t pass up the opportunity. Reciprocal links between your site and another are a place where you can usually specify the text you’d like used. The other site owner probably won’t mind, since they won’t have to think about what text to use. You also are able to specify anchor text on HubPages and Squidoo lenses, as well as your signature in forum postings.

These are some of the basics of SEO. There is much more to learn of course, but these tips are a good place to start in a seo campaign. Use these methods until they become ingrained. You’ll see an increase in your page ranking as well as your traffic.

This guide is written not from a perspective of an industry insider, but is instead aimed at a layman. Rather than getting bogged down in the intricacies of writing code to positively influence search engines, this article will take a step back from that and concentrate on the history of this discipline as well as some theory.

To start off with lets give a reason why search engine Optimization (SEO) should matter to you. Lets say you are a small business that is selling shoes. You invest a couple of thousand dollars in a competently designed website. Your website is published but you receive no visitors and visitors equal money because they will hopefully be buying your shoes.

So in order to get visitors to your website you write a list about how you will publicize it.

At number one on the list is paying for advertising space in the print media, whether national or local publications, or niche magazines. Advertising like this has been done for centuries and clearly does work judging by the billions of dollars spent every year.

At number two on your list is Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising which on the World Wide Web is mainly run by Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing, and Microsoft adCenter.

You’ve all seen these types of adverts in Google search results: they always in the right hand column. It works as a bidding system. You pay, say, $1 to Google every time somebody clicks on your advert and visits your site. If you pay more than $1 then your advert will appear higher in the list and so consequently you will receive more visitors. The amount that you pay for an advert depends on how competitive your niche and keywords are. For instance, you will pay more to advertise with a keyword like “home insurance” (extremely competitive) than you would “Gardening Services in Salisbury, Connecticut” (not very competitive).

Done correctly PPP advertising will yield a financial return. This industry is called Paid Search Advertising and although related to search engine Optimization, it is a separate sphere in its own right.

Getting back to your list.

At number three is SEO. At the most basic level of explanation this means getting to the number one spot in the search engine results for your niche or keywords. Going back to the previous example then this means that if somebody types “Gardening Services in Salisbury, Connecticut” then your Salisbury-based gardening site is the first result in the list.

Why is being first so important? Won’t being number two or three or even number 27 on the third page do?

Time and time again investigations into people’s user habits revel that users are more likely to click on a result if it is on the number one sport. They are then more likely to click on the number two result than the number three result, but less likely to click on the number two result than the number one result. Simplified, the higher on the list you are the more visitors your will receive.

So how do you get to number one? And now here is the rub – the only people who can truly answer that question are the search engines themselves. They keep their formulas – like the Coca-Cola and KFC recipes – a secret.

This is because if they were completely open with their formula – technically called algorithms – then every two-bit spammer in existence would take advantage of this in order to get their Viagra or porn site to dominate the search engine results. Google would crumble into uselessness over night.

What they do is give us some information. Enough so that we can safely calculate that if we do X and Y then our website will eventually succeed in receiving a more prominent profile in the search engine results.

We know that if we put keywords into certain places on a page such as between the header or title tages, then this is beneficial to a seo campaign. The search engines bots look at these prime spots on a web page and consider them indicative about what the subject matter of the entire page is about. The trouble comes in that which we don’t know, or at least that which we are unsure about.

Many of those involved in seo often guess about the unknown factors, sometimes they make educated guesses, other times the herd mentality prevails. Consequently, because of the vast grey areas seo has a bad reputation amongst many people.

As seo professional Laura Callow wrote recently: “Personally, I’m really, really tired of the uninformed or the simply ignorantly arrogant stating with utter conviction that seo is a ‘waste of time’ and that it is conducted only by ‘snake-oil salesmen’. Actually, effective seo is pretty hard work, it’s not that easy, and it is a big deal. In my books, seo remains misunderstood by the masses and I’m fast turning into Ms. Cranky-Pants when it comes to answering these detractors.”

Laura is right – there is much to learn from SEO.

So as stated above the layout and code of a website (called on-page optimization in the seo industry) can be changed and that will make the website more attractive to search engines. This is only maybe a 25-30% slice of the complete seo pie. The rest is down to incoming links: links that point towards a website.

Let me introduce to you academic Albert-László Barabási. In the 1990s he carried out a famous study into how the World Wide Web has evolved organically and he found that despite no one person or body organising the expansion of the WWW, a very definite structure had taken shape rather than just chaos.

At its centre were a few hub websites and around them were the many node websites. The hub websites were the most important as they had a vast number of incoming links pointing at them. To give an example, BBC.co.uk is a hub website as there are tons of links going towards it from every conceivable direction, while the  node websites can be counted in their millions.

His formula for this reads:

D(k) = Z(k) -A

This is probably one of the most important mathematical equations from modern times. It underpins the growing discipline of network science as well as the the main search engine algorithms. You’ve heard of the thesis about six degrees of separation? And that we are connected to anybody else on the planet by no more than six places? Well that originates in the work of Barabási.

The central part of the search engine formula is based on the importance of being linked to from these web hubs. An incoming link from the BBC or the New York Times newspaper is far, far more important than a incoming link from Old Miss Tibbles Salisbury Cat Lovers site.

In the search engines eyes this really is a BIG thumbs up to your site. If these hubs are linking to your site then its value goes up in the eyes of the search engines and they deem it suitable for greater exposure in the rankings. Google doesn’t employ people to manually review every single site. It is reliant on automatically interpreting the quality and number of incoming links so to judge the worth of a site.

So if incoming links in seo are extremely important and how do you get quality incoming links? That’s another tutorial for another time. The point of this article is merely to emphasis the importance of seo and its potential effect on the fortunes of any one website if understood and implemented correctly.

Search engine optimization (SEO) are various methods which are used in order to improve the search engine ranking of a website. So what is search engine ranking? This is the position on the list of results which a search engine return for a given keyword.

Why is search engine ranking important?

The higher your site is on the list of search engine result pages (or SERPs), the higher the likelihood that it will be seen; meaning more traffic for you. The most popular search engine, Google features 10 results per page. Most people don’t look past the first page of results – this is why seo is so important. If your page is in the top ten results you will get far more traffic than if you were on later pages.

SEO techniques fall under two broad categories, on-page and off-page.

On Page SEO

These are the things which you can do on your actual site to increase your search engine ranking. This generally involves keywords and their use to let search engines know what the content of your site is about. These techniques include the placement of keywords in metatags, alt tags for images, keywords in your HTML header tags and the actual content of your site.

Off Page SEO

These are also related to keywords usage, as well as the creation of back links. A back link is a link on another website which points to your site and are also called inbound links.

Steps You Can Take To Improve Your SEO

1. Always use keyword and description meta tags.

Every page which is part of your website should have its own unique meta tags. These tags are pieces of HTML code which are found near the top of the page when you are looking at the HTML code of a webpage.

For a keyword meta tag, use a comma separated list of keywords which are relevant to the content of your website. These can be phrases as well as single words; just make sure that they are relevant to your site’s content.

The description meta tag is where you should write a description of your site which is compelling enough to make someone want to visit it. This description is used by search engines (including Google) to describe your site. It is not for the search engine alone, it can also be seen by web users and can get them interested enough to visit.

2. Where there are images on your site, there should always be an alt tag.

An alt(short for alternative text) tag is a piece of HTML code which tells people who have images turned off, are using text only browsers or a screen reader what the image which they cannot view is about. Search engines also use these tags to help them determine the content of your site.

The alt tag should also contain relevant keywords and a description of the image they are replacing. Rather than just placing “header” in your alt tag for a heading image, take this chance to help search engines know the content of your site – for instance “birdbaths” if your website is about birdbaths. Don’t overstuff this tag with keywords though.

3. Use header tags wisely.

The header tags (known as H1, H2, etc.) are looked at search engines to find the important keywords are for your website. You can use style sheets to change the appearance of these tags. Instead, use standard HTML for these headers and not style sheets. Then all you need to do is make sure that these header tags contain relevant keywords – H1 the primary keywords, H2 the secondary and so on.

4. Get backlinks with relevant keywords.

You will want back links. All of the back links you can get. This should be an ongoing process as part of your seo strategy. If you can get a few back links a week, this looks much better than getting 5,000 all at once – since these links will have been bought from a link farm, more than likely. Search engines watch for this kind of activity and penalize pages who use these tactics.

However, there are plenty of other ways to get back links. You can go the traditional route and exchange links with other sites. You can also become active in forums and use your link in your signature. Articles which you write can be submitted to directories, with a link to your site in the resource box. HubPages and Squidoo lenses can be built which include links to your site. You can also start a blog and submit the RSS feed to an aggregator, encouraging readers of your blog to follow suit. Twitter can be used to inform the public whenever you have new content up. These are just a few of the possibilities.

You will also want to come up with some good anchor text for your back links to use when possible. The anchor text is the text which is actually clicked as the link (usually visible by being blue and underlined on a website). Search engines also examine this text to determine the content of your site. Us your main keywords or variations on them – whatever looks more natural on the page while still being relevant to your site. Remember to use appropriate keywords for the specific page on your site which the link points to.

Sometimes you will not be able to specify the anchor text to be used. But when you can, you shouldn’t pass up the opportunity. Reciprocal links between your site and another are a place where you can usually specify the text you’d like used. The other site owner probably won’t mind, since they won’t have to think about what text to use. You also are able to specify anchor text on HubPages and Squidoo lenses, as well as your signature in forum postings.

These are some of the basics of SEO. There is much more to learn of course, but these tips are a good place to start in a seo campaign. Use these methods until they become ingrained. You’ll see an increase in your page ranking as well as your traffic.

Professional service firms have the same need for seo search engine optimization as does any other business, because professionals such as physicians, attorneys and accountants have as much competition in their field of excellence as do any others using the internet to promote their services.

It is therefore essential that each page on their website is focused as much as possible on a specific keyword, and that each web page is optimized both online and offline for its own keyword (a keyword can refer to a single word or a phrase.) The objective of seo search engine optimization is to persuade search engine algorithms that your page is highly relevant to the search term being used.

‘Page’ is stressed, because most search engines list pages and not entire websites and that page can be your Home Page or any other page on your website. We shall refer to Google from herein because that search engine takes about 80% of the total online search traffic, and if you are not listed on the first two pages of Google then forget it.

Here is a brief synopsis of how you can improve your search engine listing by using an intelligently crafted seo strategy involving both on-page and off-page search engine optimization techniques. It should be stressed that these are ‘SEO essentials’, and there are more advanced techniques that can be used to give you the jump on your competition but which are too focused and specialized to be included here.

Here are the major seo techniques that you can use on each of your web pages.

Sections of your Web Page

You have two important sections within the HTML source code of each page on your site: The ‘Head’ section and the ‘Body’ section. The content of the ‘Head’ section is not seen by the public, only by search engine spiders that use it to determine the relevance of your page to the search term used by the Google user.

Google doesn’t care too much about your intended page focus – its algorithms will determine the relevance itself, and your job is to persuade these algorithms that your page is worth offering to those searching for information. Spiders do not look at your page and assess it for the keyword you are using on it, but index it in relation to its relevance to the search terms and keywords used by the searcher.

Here is a run-down on the basic type of seo optimization that everybody should have on every single page on their website, but that an amazingly large number do not.

a) Meta Tags:

The Meta tags appear in the ‘Head’ section of your page HTML, before the ‘Body’ section. The important Meta tags in the HTML of your page are the Title tags and the Description tags. Keep in mind that nothing in these Meta tags are seen by anybody visiting your website, but they are very important aspects of your SEO.

The Title Tag should contain your keyword and is what will be seen at the top of your Google listing. The Description Tag will be used partially or in its entirety in the listed description of your page. No other tags have much effect, although the keyword tag might be used by the minor search engines.

b) Heading Tags

The ‘Heading’ tags, seen as H1, H2 etc, should be used for the page and paragraph headings on your web page. Use H1 tags for the visible page title: you won’t go wrong if that is exactly the same as the title in the Title tag. Google’s algorithm will give a keyword added importance in determine the relevance of your page if it is within H tags, and even more if it is in Bold text and Italics. Underlining also adds to the perceived relevance.

c) Graphics ‘Alt’ Attribute

You should use the ‘Alt’ attribute in the image HTML of each of your graphics. That tells the viewer the content of the graphic if doesn’t resolve on their website, and is also rewarded by Google in its assessment of your page relevance.

Thus: IMG height=94 alt=”Your Page Title image1″ hspace=0 src=”http://…
You can use your page title is not too long, or a relevant keyword for the page.

d) keyword Use

Forget all this stuff about using a keyword density (KD) of up to 3%. Google uses its LSI (latent semantic indexing) algorithm to determine the relevance of your page, which means using text that is semantically related to your keywords and the focus of the page. Repetition of keywords will no longer work, and will actually be punished with a low listing. Imagine an 800 word article with 24 mentions of the keyword…

Good natural writing, with around 0.6% – 1% KD will be better than endless keyword repetition, particularly if you are using a lot of semantically related text to explain the meaning of your page. Descriptive writing is better than keywords, although be careful to use synonyms that are true synonyms and not ambiguous. Thus, what are ‘locks’? Your page content should make it clear to Google’s LSI algorithm to which type of locks you are referring.

Linking Strategy

Google’s PageRank algorithm is a means of assessing the importance and popularity of each web page according to the number of other web pages linking to it: the more links it has, then the more relevant and popular the page must be. These links can come either from within your own website or from other websites.

Each web page is allocated a starting PR of 1.0 by Google, and it is possible to arrange your internal links (navigation structure) to provide the maximum PR points to specific pages in your website.

You can also provide back-links to your web pages from external websites by using techniques such as article marketing, where you can use a link in a section of your article that offers you a share of the PR of any directory page that publishes your article. The same benefit can be achieved by submitting your website to website directories, and also by persuading others to add a link to your site from their own website.

These are the major seo search engine optimization techniques for professional service firms that you can easily use on your website to give you a good start in persuading Google to list your web pages in the results pages for specific search terms (keywords). By doing this successfully, you can be rewarded with masses of free traffic, but keep in mind that these are basic essentials, and there are other methods that can be used to give you a real advantage over your competitors.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and search engine Marketing (SEM) are all the rage nowadays. Rather than waste money mailing or phoning traditional advertising out to people who probably have no immediate interest in your products or services, SEO/SEM allow businesses to present ads only to people who are more-likely on the verge of buying from them or a competitor right then. Would you rather pay for every instance of your print ad being displayed in every copy of some newspaper sold, or would you rather target your ad only to people who just performed a Web search for exactly what you sell? Even if each search engine impression cost orders of magnitude more than each recipient of the print ad, the return could easily be sufficient to make it wildly worth the cost… and better still, if you can follow some basic instructions, it might not even cost you anything!

Generally, people want to search for Websites, reviews, comparisons, and other information before they search for specific vendors and practitioners. If a search engine only showed sponsored advertising, it would be of less value to searchers, meaning that fewer people would use it, so fewer advertisers would pay to advertise there. This business model produces a downward spiral that is simply unviable. Instead, search engines show both paid advertising and “organic” search results. When Google’s Web crawlers find and parse a dentist’s Website, for instance, they find clues on it that it’s related to dentistry. They may also find localization information, such as an address or telephone area code. Later, when someone in that area searches for dentists, Google may show this dentist’s listing in the organic search results along with the paid advertisers. This impression cost the dentist nothing!

How, then, can businesses get themselves more free, organic listing impressions? This is what search engine Optimization (SEO) addresses, and while it may require an investment of time, effort, or capital to implement, the specific cost per impression (CPI) or cost per click (CPC) are nil. In short, the more sweat equity you’re willing to put in, the lower your cash cost of implementation will be.

Before you come to imagine that seo is simply a checklist of things you have to do to get your website to the top of the organic search results forever, let me point out that you’re not the only one working towards this goal; your competitors are, too. In an unrelated analogy, college graduates used to have no trouble getting jobs, but this prompted more people to get their sheepskins today than there are jobs for college graduates, so many are unemployed while others continue on to a graduate school, which will eventually make that distinction less scarce, too. Similarly, the distinction of being top-ranked on organic search is a moving target which requires a continuous effort on your part to keep improving your ranking as compared to your competitors.

Surely, you’ve heard the old adage that banks only lend you money when you don’t need it. Well, it’s similar with organic search rankings. If you search for “shipping,” you’re much more likely to find UPS and FedEx in your search results than some small local courier. Why? Google has nothing against small local couriers, but they want to provide the best possible results to the greatest number of end-users so those end-users will keep coming back, rather than jump ship to Bing or Yahoo. There’s a higher probability that UPS or FedEx would be able to handle any end-user’s shipping needs than would some small local courier.

Basically, you need to make your website appear to be a large and well-regarded resource in your field in order to get search engines to present it as such. How? You need more referrals, more traffic, and more conversions. I hate to call them “tricks,” but there are some things of which you should be aware that will help you improve your ranking.

One “trick” is to specialize; instead of trying to be everything to everyone, try to be the best at something specific. That small local courier in my last example has no chance of beating out UPS head-to-head, worldwide, but they may be the best delivery service in the City of White Plains, NY. They may come on call, and make same-day pickups and deliveries at reasonable rates. They may offer packing services and shipping supplies at the time of pickup, so you could just hand them flowers, your grandmother’s heirloom glass vase, a card, and an address, and leave the rest to them. For that courier to try to become top-ranked in global “shipping” searches would be futile, but if it focuses on winning in searches around “White Plains, NY,” for “same-day delivery” or “packing and shipping,” it has a much better chance of becoming top-ranked.

Again, I sense you thinking, “How?” Well, the most obvious answer is that the courier’s website should emphasize that it specializes in such, um, specialties. (Note to self: get thesaurus.) The content of their website should discuss the courier’s strengths in White Plains, NYin same-day deliveryand in packing and shipping. The titles of the related pages should include the words White Plains, NY, same-day delivery, and packing and shipping. Headings on those pages should include White Plains, NY, same-day delivery, and packing and shipping. Metadata descriptions on those pages should include White Plains, NY, same-day delivery, and packing and shipping. Metadata key words for those pages should include the words White Plains, NY, same-day delivery, and packing and shipping. Lest you think I needed a thesaurus for those last five sentences, too, let me clearly state that you want to achieve exactly the repetitiveness I presented. The content, titles, headings, descriptions, and key words should present a clear, unified, unambiguous, unmistakable representation of the Web page.

Another “trick” is to cultivate inbound links. For the uninitiated, the idea is that when other Websites link to yours, search engines treat it as a testimonial for your Website, and it improves your Website’s ranking in organic search results. The ranking of the referring website is taken into account, so testimonials from Microsoft.com or WSJ.com are more valuable than ones from smaller Websites, but any ranking points are better than none, so ask friends, clients, and suppliers if they would do a link-exchange with you. Rather than dilute your Webpage content, you’ll probably want to put their links on a “links” or “resources” page other than your main page, but keep in mind that it will get less traffic than your main page, and that they’re going to want to do the same thing to you, too. Also, the best way to implement this is to have your desired search keywords serve as your link, so this, for example:

For the best value in Westchester small business IT support, contact Maverick Solutions IT, Inc.

is less preferable than this:

For the best value in Westchester small business IT support, contact Maverick Solutions IT, Inc.

Other ways to generate more inbound links are to blog, tweet, wall post, answer newsgroup questions, or publish articles. Having articles published with “about the author” links or making newsgroup posts with links in your signature block are obvious ways to generate inbound links – especially if they’re highly-trafficked, well-regarded, widely-read articles (like this one). However, even blog entries on your own website may be retweeted on Twitter, shared on Facebook, or syndicated on sites looking for content. We use Google Alerts to monitor any online mention of our company, and find that many of our blog entries and articles have turned up in the strangest of places… but they all count as free, inbound links! Even just creating Linked-in and Facebook pages for your business are good ways to pick up a few more search engine ranking points, and they give you more ways to showcase yourself to your prospects.

Many a small business will just link to its main home page, but if you create individual landing pages and think of them as separate campaigns, you can optimize each of those titles, headings, descriptions, key words, and content, individually. For example:

MaverickSolutions.biz is our business’ main page MaverickSolutions.biz/solutions_sec.htm is a sub-page for when we promote our security & surveillance systems MaverickSolutions.biz/schools.htm is a sub-page for when we’re marketing ourselves to schools MaverickSolutions.biz/promo/ is a landing page we established for a Free PC Tune-Up campaign we ran a few months back (Yes, you’re welcome to take us up on it if you’re in the New York Metro Area.) You can even link to individual blog articles you may have published on particular topics, such as MaverickSolutions.biz/blog/2010/how-did-i-get-a-virus-and-how-do-i-get-rid-of-it/

Once you’ve started to generate some momentum in your website ranking, you can begin to focus some effort on more ranking optimization. If you and a friend promote each other on your own small business’ Websites, since each of you has a low ranking score, the benefit for each of you is low. However, if you could get links from bigger companies, they would be more valuable. One way to do this is to partner with larger companies; we are a Microsoft partner company, so we are listed on their partner directory and have a link from there. Another way is to be involved in high-profile projects; we have worked as a subject matter expert (SME) for the Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA), and have had links from them. An easy way is to join local business networking groups and get links from their Webpages to yours; we joined our local BNI chapter. There are even “tricks” to get reporters to quote you as an expert in articles they’re writing in your field, and they’ll frequently provide links, too. When these articles are syndicated on dozens or hundreds of secondary online publications, you can get some terrific exposure.

We all want to more about search engine optimization, its importance, value of getting ranked higher in organic listing in search engines. There are various ways, professional search engine optimizers (SEO’s) use to get started with. Some may start straight with reciprocal link building for the website homepage, others may give priority to directory submission & for a few submitting the web pages to different search engines may be the first thing to get started.

I learn these ways and means from different articles I read about SEO. However I put my money on “On Page search engine Optimization” to be my first step towards search engine optimization. It’s not about how many web pages link to my web page or how many search engines have indexed my web page, for me these things come only after I know that my page is ready for the taking. This is my very first step towards SEO.

Here the large screenshot image that you can see was the only thing there on this page before I took this page up for optimization and there were 37 such pages in the website. Well the image did not have the 1, 2… markings that we all can see now. When you look into the right navigation panel on the page, you can see link to HR Management System under the heading HR Software. This is the only page that links to this page, i.e. the HR Software page is the parent product page. So this new design needs to talk about some features of the parent product. I strongly believe that its not just link building, it is about building relevant traffic from search engines, something I have talked about in my earlier articles.

Let’s come back here, now first I started gathering my key phrases I would want all visitors searching for them should also visit my web page. Here again my criteria was only 4 to 6 key phrases. Now before looking for these phrases I was well aware than my strong main product page is not going to provide this page a key phrase rich text link as you can see from this url: http://www.iemployee.com/mkt/hrsoftware.htm page. Also link building for this small considered web page is also not possible since there are other giant product pages that needed further optimization already there in the pipeline.

Here let me share something with you all, I am writing all these just because never in any articles I have read about search engine Optimization (SEO), did I find a live example with explanation. When we go for any educational courses, we are always given live examples. Here, in our case, we find experts with years of experience talking about search engine Optimization, free tools etc, its like either they seem to promote themselves or the company that sells seo tools and actually not sharing. I believe this is all about sharing that could add on to the knowledge base of the reader.

Ok, so you’ve submitted your website to the necessary search engines, you type in your keywords, and…ok…it’s not on page 1…2…10….ah! There it is on page …11 ??!! What’s wrong?

What exactly IS search engine Optimization (SEO)? According to Webopedia.com, it’s “the process of increasing the amount of visitors to a Web site by ranking high in the search results of a search engine”, in other words, getting a high Google/Yahoo/ placement.

SEO has two sets of techniques on-page and off-page. On-page is when you do tinker the site itself to optimize it.

On-page optimization usually requires HTML skills, thus it could get really technical. But if you’ve always been inquisitive and you have enough time to learn HTML, it would help you a lot. Make sure that your site has the following qualities:

1. quick loading pages (if it takes forever, you won’t get much repeat visitors)

2. a professional look

3. clear about what it is you offer and what the visitor’s next step should be (such as signing up for a newsletter)

4. provides some pertinent information right on the first page (with no clicking on links required)

Search engines use “spiders” to follow the links around the web, and get content from the web pages they find. Before you get creepy, crawly ideas in your mind, these “spiders” are different from our usual 8-legged friends. They are actually automated robots, and when they follow links they’re “crawling” the web (also called “spidering”), hence, the name.

Off-page search engine Optimization (SEO) is the next step you can resort to after dealing with on-page beautification of your site. One cool method is to submit your website to search engines. Many people view this as a very important step in SEO, some even going as far as paying huge amounts to companies that promise to submit their sites to “thousands” of search engines. Before you break the bank, many an experienced programmer has said that you do not need thousands of search engines, but simply the top 5. Submitting your website means filling out a form that is provided by the search engine. For Google, for example, you can submit your site at http://www.google.com/addurl.html, and once its registered, it’s automatically updated. It used to be that this was the basic step in skyrocketing your site’s searchability to the top of the search engine Results Pages (SERPS), and, if you don’t have other websites that link to yours, this step may be necessary, but if you do have other web sites that link to yours, whether or not you submit your site, these guys will find you.

Another step that many webmasters take is article marketing. Web content is what keeps the Internet community go round. Who won’t enjoy reading tips after tips after tips on just about anything in this world. If you can write well, cool! You can save a lot as long as you have the time to provide content for your site. But if you don’t, there’s always seo writers to help you in that endeavor. Aside from providing quality web content to your site, which is what will keep traffic pouring to your site. Share some of your content to article directories. When other website owners find your content apt for their own site’s, provided that you have a well-written resource box (a concise description of your site and your website’s URL and your name), that should help you boost your site’s search engine placement.

Webmasters have focused on breaking the code of a search engine’s algorithm, which is simply the “formula” a search engine uses to match the websites with the terms being used. Attempts at trying to figure out these algorithms is futile, first of all, because these are not simple formulas, but could contain hundreds of factors, and secondly, they are constantly changing.

There is another dichotomy of seo with regards to whether the techniques are ethical or not. They are known as white hat techniques and black hat techniques. The techniques mentioned above are “usually” known as white hat techniques. The adverb “usually” was used because when abuse of those techniques is made, they can also turn into black hat techniques, which is what many quality search engines frown upon.

Some focus on “tricks” or what seo experts call “BlackHat SEO” such as using invisible text (e.g. putting pink text on a pink background), cloaking, which means showing one page to a search engine’s spider and showing a different page to the real visitors, and keyword stuffing, which simply means, cramming every nook and cranny of your website with your keywords. These tricks could “work” for a while, but, on the other hand, could also warrant penalties from the search engines, resulting in either a lower ranking, or altogether being banned.

So, how do you achieve search engine Optimization? The key is still your website’s content. Building a high quality site for your readers/customers is the best way to achieve SEO. Build it, and they will come. It sounds simplistic, but it’s true.

Search engine optimization seo is a topic that is spoken about practically everywhere on the internet, yet is the most misunderstood skill on the internet. People talk about and argue about things they know little about, and experts suddenly find that they are no longer so after the next Google algorithm change.

There are 4 basic rules for quality search engine optimization SEO, and the first is to keep it natural. Do not try to pack your text full of keywords. search engine algorithms come and go, but if you keep your writing, and your website content, natural as it should be you will not suffer. If your website is about cats and dogs, you can write naturally about cats and dogs, and you will have a good chance of a high listing.

Rule 1 for search engine optimization SEO: Write Naturally

The days are long gone when you could pack your page full of a keyword, but with no meaningful information, in order to fool the search engines. They can now check out the context of your website using a technique loosely named latent semantic indexing, or LSI. In fact it is not true LSI, but a much diluted form of it. Basically, the algorithm checks out the way you are using words on your webpage, and it determines the topic and how well you are dealing with it. It is similar to the software used by Adsense to decide what ads should be put on your page.

If you don’t know what Adsense is, you should not be worrying about search engine optimization at this stage in your internet development. So, rule 1- write naturally.

The bottom line with search engine optimization seo is that search engines want to be able to choose the most relevant information for their visitors.

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Is seo search engine optimization (SEO) really worth the investment? Do small business owners really get their moneys’ worth through SEO? Can seo really improve a small businesses’ bottom line? From business to business, seo is as a personal an issue as it is to be a Democrat or a Republican.

Search engine optimization is a marketing tool of much debate. While certain business types achieve a healthy return on investment (ROI) via search engine optimization marketing, other online entities experience paltry, murky or even lackluster results.

Depending on the type of small business, seo may or may not be futile. For instance, a professional hit man may not want his or her site to appear at the first search results of Google. So, seo is not ideal for businesses where covert services are provided (in example: killing, spying importing illegal narcotics, etc). Also, certain street vendors do not need seo – simply because their business is conducted in-person and on the street. Case and point, the ice cream man does not need seo – simply because customers are not typing “is the ice cream man coming.”

The vast majority of business-to-business and business-to-consumer entities requiring a website to expand awareness about their company’s offerings, need a certain amount of SEO. If not only to be found online or to define a company’s products and services, websites are tantamount to little office storefronts stocked with a self-automated sales force — thoughtfully presented in a compelling marketing communiqué.

But depending on the budget, industry and market saturation, there is a disparity in search engine optimization rates. Costs variations in seo run the gamut from $1000 to $60,000. For instance, let’s say entrepreneur #1 sells whoopee cushions and entrepreneur #2 sells chairs. Who has the better chance of assuming first page rankings? On Google, a search for whoopee cushions and chairs returns 181,000 and 97,600,000 results, respectively.

Apparently, a whoopee cushion e-retailer would have a better chance at gaining first page rankings on Google than the chair business — because the market is smaller with fewer competitors. Nevertheless, both markets are suitable for generating prospects, customers and revenue online. The difference being, the whoopee cushion Web site would be more affordable to optimize than the online chair company.

Nevertheless, search engine optimization (SEO) is only as complicated as we make it. The underlying objective of seo is to gain rankings on the top ten pages of Google and other popular search engines. Visibility represents more business opportunities. As a result, higher page rankings call for better site popularity.

Here are some preliminary steps a small business can take to save money before turning their site over to an seo consultancy:

1) Become familiar with the target market. Research how your prospective customers search for your products and services. When they’re searching for a whoopee cushion, do they type in blow-up cushions? How often are they shopping for these products and who are your competitors? Is your target market looking for specially designed whoopee cushions?

To learn how your target audience searches for your product, visit Yahoo’ search marketing resource portal and type in synonyms or related keywords pertaining to your business. Make a note of all keywords that relate to your products and services. These words will be used in step #2. Research within your market, the needs of your customers. It will not only help you devise a market niche based on their demand but it can set you apart from your competition.

2) Submit site URL. For starters, use sites such as SubmitExpress.com to submit your URL to directories. In fact, many web-hosting packages include a complimentary search engine submission to more than 40 different websites. (Some seo marketing firms charge $100 dollar for such services).

Meanwhile, the various words discovered in step number one are the approximate words needed to include in the keywords of your search engine directory submission.

3) Tweak content keywords. Even though you may not be a writer, try to make sure that your Web site employs adequate information about the products and services your business provides – using the keywords found in step #1. In other words, make sure you have sufficient coverage of your keywords. At Keyworddensity.com, the keyword density of your site can be evaluated by typing in your URL.

4) Market It. Launch your very own marketing campaign. Write articles based on problems solved by simple solutions tying in the awareness of your company’s offerings. For example, to market whoopee cushions online, the problem would relate to how uncomfortable stadium seats are on the buttocks. The health concerns could be related to lower sciatica or something as controversial and indelible as hemorrhoids. Next, these informative articles or press releases could be submitted to sites such as EzineArticles.com, PRWeb.com. These little articles represent link popularity, traffic and of course free PR.

While this article is not meant to replace the professional advice of a seo specialist, the above tasks can help small businesses be clear on identifying their market. Not to mention, the above DIY search engine optimization (SEO) steps may help a small business fine-tune their target market, remain steadfast to their objectives, and be true to the identity of their business niche.

Please feel free to add this article to your website or ezines with the following message: This article is a courtesy of Holly Bentz, (c) 2006 fruitionMedia.net – All Rights Reserved. For a customized newsletter, web copy or articles, visit http://fruitionMedia.net to contact us.