What is SEO?
SEO or Search Engine Optimization is the name given to the process of making a website achieve high ranking in search engine queries. The most popular search engine by a long margin (60% of all searches worldwide) is Google, and so most effort is put towards optimizing for that website.
How to implement it
SEO is founded on good web design that consists of accessible and efficient code. Words or phases should be researched using online keyword popularity tools such as Overture and WordTracker to determine which keywords should be used in the text of your website. The ideal scenario is to find a keyword or phrase, or set of keywords or phrases that are frequently searched for, but are not found on many websites. Obviously, very popular searches will have many websites focussed on these keywords.
However, SEO is not only limited to keywords. Perhaps even more important is the PageRank factor. PageRank is a Google-created attribute that reflects a page's importance: the higher the PageRank (out of 10), the greater authority and importance your website has, and normally, this is reflected in your ranking on search engines. How PageRank is determined is a closely guarded secret (by Google), but it an important factor is the number of links from other websites to yours. The greater the number of links from high PageRanked websites, the higher your PageRank will be, and the better you will rank in searches.
The Long Tail
A Long Tail when applied to SEO is a term used to describe niche areas that in total receive greater interest or traffic than mainstream areas. For example, "books" is a very popular search term, whereas "antique art books" is much less popular. However, if you can optimize your website for those search terms, although you will not have as many people searching for the term, you are much more likely to be one of the top results returned. Furthermore, and most importantly, the people that have found your website are much more likely to be interested in your content, than if they were just searching for books. The Long Tail effect enables smaller specialist websites to survive and thrive, and it is important to consider when choosing your keywords.
When should you do SEO?
It is best to start SEO before you write the content of the website. This way you can ensure the keywords you have targeted are well incorporated into your text, in prominent positions, such as page titles, near the top of your page content, in headers, and emphasized in bold or in italics. However, if your website has already been made without considering SEO, you can still go back and make editions to the website content and design if necessary.
What you should not do
With the growing importance of search engines on the Internet as a method of finding information, SEO has become big business. There are now thousands of specialized businesses offering SEO alone, many making bold promises such as a guarantee of a top 10 rank in Google. Approach such offers with care, as you may be paying for a top 10 rank in a search phrase that receives no traffic at all!
You must also be exceptionally careful not to try and trick search engines. There are a huge number of dirty tricks that can be done to try and increase your ranking on searches, such as websites filled with thousands of links linking to yours. It is possible that such schemes may bring you temporary success, but it is almost guaranteed that your trickery will be found out, and then you can expect to be stripped of your rank, and possibly banned for good from the search engines. This is a risk that will not pay off.
Best practice
While SEO is essential to consider when trying to get a top-ranking site, if you have a website filled with quality content, and you are able to promote it so that other websites link to it, this is arguably the most important strategy you can employ. Although assorted SEO strategies and fads come and go, if you are producing good quality text that is useful, you are already giving your website a headstart. "Content is King" is the catchphrase coined to illustrate the importance of this.
Ben Coleman is the CEO and owner of Real Free Websites. He has been designing websites and working on website technologies since 1999. Real Free Websites was created to fill a niche: to offer free or low-cost customized websites and top quality hosting.
If you want your business to succeed, you employ a number of ways to make sure that you meet and exceed your target revenues. You hire people, you come up with great promotions, and you spend money to make money. But have you considered search engine optimization? It will surely help your business if you know how to go around this great marketing tool that does not cost a lot and only takes some time and effort to conduct. Here are four useful considerations for better search engine optimization:
1. Find out the most searched keyword that is related to the product or service that you offer. You will also need several other back up yet equally in demand keywords. In order to do this, you will need to use a keyword analyzer program - it will only cost you a couple of bucks, and it will be worth it. Better yet, borrow one from a fellow business owner.
2. When it comes to writing your content, remember to stick to the topic. Sprinkle relevant keywords but make sure that you maintain a smooth flow of words. If you have irrelevant content or badly written content, search engines are likely to boot you to the end of the rankings line.
3. Utilize error marketing to make your web site spic and span. Articles that are well written will click with audiences, impressing them with your polished writing skills and convincing them to try out you product without seeming like a hard sell. If your articles are unedited and lack smooth transition, people will think you are unprofessional.
4. Your most searched keywords must be present within the first two or three sentences of your content. The first part of your text will be displayed in search ranking page, and you need to make sure that the information people want can already be reflected on it.
Do you want to learn more about how I do it? I have just completed my brand new guide to article marketing success, 'Your Article Writing and Promotion Guide'
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Sean Mize is a full time internet marketer who has written over 1574 articles in print and 11 published ebooks.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Sean_R_Mize
On-page optimization refers to the optimization techniques that are applied on the website pages, while off-page optimization refers to those methods applied outside it. Both techniques have their own relevance in the search engine results.
On-Page Optimization (On-page SEO)
On-page SEO main aspects/methods.
• Hyperlink Title Tags
• Meta Tags
• Header (H1) Tags
• Formating Tags
• Keywords
• Content
• URLs
• Outgoing Links
• ALT images
Dos and Don’ts for On-Page Optimization
• Use the keywords only once in the hyperlink and alt-image tags
• Overall key density in the text content should be between 10 and 20%, with primary keyword density about 5-6% and secondary key word density about 2-3%.
• H1 tags should contain the primary keywords. The priority of the keyword should be according to the sequence of the heading.
• Bold all the keywords in their first appearance, and apply repeat bolding only for the primary keyword in its last occurrence.
• Position the primary keywords in the first and the last paragraphs, if possible, in the first line of the paras.
• Use single-word keywords. They perform better than split keywords.
• Do not use duplicate contents or hidden contents (texts or links with the same color as that of the background)
• Avoid cloaking (a process by which a user is redirected to a different page from an original page directed by the search engine)
• Avoid intensive use of flash and javascript to convey important content as spiders will not be able to decipher these content.
• Avoid pages that require authentication as this would make the page not crawlable by Search Engine’s spiders.
Search engines will penalize the websites that are involved in unethical practices such as cloaking and duplicating either by reducing their ranking or by eliminating the website from their index. It is therefore necessary to follow the guidelines set by the search engines strictly.
Off-Page Optimization
Off-page optimization refers to the process of improving the performance of the website by off-page practices such as
• Keyword research
• Encouraging in-bound links from high ranking sites
• Use of different keywords in the referred links
• Tracking the traffic
Dos and Don’ts for Off-Page Optimization
• Encourage the incoming links by partnering with websites with better page ranking.
• Avoid link farming. Link farming is a method of including hundreds of outbound links in a website. This practice of link exchanges has been developed into an unhealthy SEO method, and so the search engines identify this process as non-ethical and reduces your page ranking.
• Do not direct the incoming links to pages that have no relevant data for the link.
• Do not direct multiple incoming links to a single page.
• Do not duplicate keywords in the inbound links.
• Do not use hidden inbound links.
• Conduct a survey on the success of the keyword/phrase.
• Make a list of new keywords and test their effectiveness with the similar websites.
• Make necessary changes in the keyword if the old keyword does not find better effects
On-page and off-page optimization finds much relevance in the context of SEO. Off-line SEO, however, involves a tedious process of maintaining a smooth traffic to your website. A regular research has to be carried out on the performance of your website. Always remember that a wrong SEO method will have a negative impact on your website
If you have ever believed that blog is all about pouring out all your bad emotions which otherwise would not be heard, you are wrong. The word ‘blog’ is the new mantra for the Search Engine Optimization (SEO), the most talked-about three letters among the web community. The single word ‘blog’ has encircled the whole globe and now the Internet has got a new name ‘blogosphere’.
Why are blogs so important in SEO? Everyone now is aware of the fact that SEO techniques value contents more than anything else. What is the relevance of blogs in such a context? Why cannot we include the contents in the main page itself, rather than providing it an additional space under the pseudo tag ‘blogs’?
Search engine algorithms have specific criteria in ranking a website. There comes the importance of keyword density. If a website has sparingly distributed keywords, it will not be identified for SEO. On the other hand, if it contains more than a specific number of keywords in it, it would be ignored as being spam. Thus it is difficult to maintain a website meeting both the criteria always.
The solution to this problem was to renew the contents of the website on a regular basis, by analyzing the trends of the search engines and the hits on the website. Modifying the content could bring some results, as the search engines started identifying them for varied and rich contents. However, the cumbersome task of getting more and more pages added and replacing the old pages with the new became a head-ache for the web professionals. Another issue associated with this solution was that the content-rich pages failed to appeal the users. The most popular websites, such as the product description sites and the e-commerce sites, failed to attract their viewers because of the elaborate contents in them.
This problem has been identified by the webmasters, and blogs have been chosen as the solution for it. Blogs provide the necessary contents for the search engines, and at the same time, it maintains the attractiveness of the website without crowding it with too much contents. Thus the purpose of SEO as well as the fruitful user hits is met.
Blogs have become an imperative marketing strategy for online communication. Its importance in website functioning cannot be ruled out. Therefore, while creating a blog, the following aspects have to be addressed properly.
• Proper use of keywords
• Use of RSS and feed buttons
• Adding the blog title as the permalink
• Adding the blog to directories
• Link building
• Comments
• Offsite tracking
The blog title should contain the keyword/phrase in it. Also the blog URL should contain the same keyword/phrase. There should be proper links to and from the blog to the website.
There is a lot of difference between an article and blog. An article is a descriptive content on a product, whereas a blog is ideally an analytical content. Therefore, it is better to avoid the practice of adding an article in the blog space. Rather, one should create a blog that is brief, conversational, and interesting. It should contain the opinion from the customers rather than the details of the products or services.
Duplicate contents always bring harm to the websites. The sad side of the story is that even if you wish to avoid duplicate contents in your website, you can’t. This is because someone else might have copied or incorporated the same contents that you have, and the search engine spiders fail to recognize which website is ‘original’,
The search engines penalize the duplicated websites in many ways. It can push the duplicated contents to the supplementary level in the Search Engine Result Page (SERP) by maintaining one website at the main level. The search engines choose the website that was registered the earliest. Sometimes the search engines may dump all the websites that contain the duplicate contents. It is also possible that the duplicate website’s index is completely removed from the search engine database.
Search engines ignore the duplicate contents mainly because of two reasons. Firstly, it does not want to spend its effort in displaying many websites that have the similar contents. Secondly, search engines think that duplication is a non-ethical practice adopted by the webmasters in order to gain popularity to their websites.
The search engines do not have any specific rules in deciding the exact quantity of the content that can be called as duplicate. It may be one line, 10 lines or one paragraph. There are different ways in which duplicate contents appear in a website.
• Description of a product : A manufacturer gives the description of a particular product in the same manner to all the websites that sell the same.
• Different URLs for the same webpage: Search engines index the pages by the name of the URLs; therefore, if they find different URLs for the same website, they will label it as duplicate. For example, a link http://www.essay.com; https://www.essay.com; http://www.essay.com/index.htm, etc., may lead to same webpage. However, the search engine crawlers do not recognize them as a single URL, and so they will be considered as duplicate webpages.
• Sites with session IDs : Session IDs are used by certain websites to track the visitors to it. As in the previous case, such URLs with different session IDs will be considered as duplicate links.
• Pages with similar structure : The layout and contents of many similar sites may look similar. For example, many e-commerce websites may have similar structure for them. These may be identified by the search engine crawlers as duplicate.
The damage caused by duplicate contents is enormous. It is the duty of every website owner to make sure that their content is not duplicated. There are various techniques available in the Internet to verify whether the content is duplicated or not. Also the search engines have set up certain guidelines to make the website owners aware of various SEO procedures that will avoid duplication. They insist that the webpages that contain the duplicate texts, such as marketing materials or URLs with session IDs, should not be given for search engine indexing.
Considering the damage that duplicate contents cause to a website, the issue needs to be addressed appropriately.
Keyword research has become an important feature of the Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Keywords/phrases function as the leads to the websites. The keywords are generally the most common words that a prospective user will type in the search engine column in order to get directed to the relevant website.
For example, if a user wishes to get details about the painter Michael Angelo, the name ‘Michael Angelo’ alone is the best keyword. However, if he wishes to get the details of the ‘last known work of Michael Angelo’, he may type either ‘last known work of Michael Angelo’, or ‘Michael Angelo last work’ or any modified version of this phrase. Thus there are infinite choices for the keyword for particular information. It is therefore very difficult for a beginner to understand the appropriate keywords that will suit his website. Keyword research thus becomes a vital component for effecting better SEO. The following are the different methods employed in devising better keywords.
* Conduct a survey on different groups of people randomly on the possible keyword options that they might come up with for describing the product or information that is highlighted in your website. Record these findings on a regular basis. After getting a satisfactory result from them, say four or five groups with consistent keywords/phrases, you may proceed with the selected ones.
* Find out the alternate words or synonyms that match the chosen keyword/phrase. Find their suitability in your website. For example, in the earlier example about the ‘last known work of Michael Angelo’, an alternative can be the ‘latest work’ or ‘final work’. Prepare a list of these related words and phrases. You may use them as secondary keywords.
* Check the traffic of other similar websites (if there exists any website similar to that of yours), with the selected keywords. This will give you an idea of the positioning of these websites on the basis of these keywords. If your selected keywords give satisfactory response with the intended contents, like that of yours, you may proceed applying them. However, remember that there is a tough competition ahead, and prepare your website by improving other SEO components so that it will surpass the competitors in page ranking.
* Get the help from the online tools. There are many tools provided by the prominent search engines such as Google and many web solution companies that help the website owners decide the effectiveness of their keyword/phrase. The website owner needs to simply key-in the different keywords and check their efficiency using these tools.
* Get data about user habits. There are websites that provide the statistics of the user habits while searching for a particular content. By studying these, you get the knowledge on the user habits and their preferences of the keyword. In some cases, the keywords will change according to the local preferences of the people in different parts of the world. For example, ‘mortgage’ is a common word used in the USA/UK while ‘home loan’ is the common term used in some other countries for the same service.
Keyword research thus plays an important role in improving the SEO of a website.
A Search Engine Optimization Company can be an invaluable
asset in your Internet marketing campaign. They specialize
in knowing how to raise your search engine positions,
monitoring those positions on the regular basis, and
adjusting their strategies to account for undesirable
results in any given month. Since this takes a lot of time,
effort, and specialized knowledge, it can be in your best
interest to go to an outside source rather than try to
maintain high search engine positions on your own.
However, like every business, there are good companies and
there are lemons. Knowing the right questions to ask and
the criteria to look for will help you in choosing an
affordable, effective search engine optimization company.
When looking at different companies, begin by considering
the approach they employ to raise your search engine
positions. Steer clear of companies that use cloaked,
doorway, or bridge pages to raise your positions. These
techniques violate most search engine policy, and in the
worst case scenario, will only get your website severely
penalized, if not removed entirely from a search engine's
index.
A cloaked page is a page that is created which is invisible
to the regular visitor to your website. The cloaked page is
coded to detect a search engine spider and divert them to
this special page, which is set-up to artificially boost
your search engine position. Doorway or bridge pages
utilize the same concept, but often reside on an entirely
different server. Google, one of the largest and most
important search engine on the Internet, will remove your
website from their index if they detect you have cloaked
pages. Never, never employ any company that uses this
technique!
Another important element is to get a guarantee that the
company you hire will not work with your competitors while
they are working for you. Obviously, this would seriously
compromise the effectiveness of the search engine
optimization campaign. Be aware that some companies will
use the success they achieve for your website to sell their
services to your competitors. So get your guarantee in
writing, and make sure it is legally binding.
Of course, one of the most important factors you want to
check out is the company's track record of results.
However, don't take the company's word for it. They will
undoubtedly be slanting their results in order to sell
their services to you. To go beyond their simple statement
of success, ask them a few pertinent questions, and verify
their answers.
Ask them which engines they have achieved the best results
on. The ones that are important are the most popular
engines, and these are the ones you want to see good
results on. Since the popularity of search engines can
change with the landscape of the overall Internet, check
out the Nielsen Netratings page at Search Engine Watch. You
can access this at
http://www.searchenginewatch.com/article.php/2156451.
Next, find out what keywords and phrases they are claiming
great results with. It's easy to get high rankings with
unpopular words. For instance, the keyword "cat leashes"
will get high popularity ranking because no one else would
think of using it. What you are looking for is good results
using popular keywords. Check out the software Wordtracker,
available at www.wordtracker.com. You can order a free
trial, or a subscription ranging from 1 day to 1 year. This
software rates the popularity of keywords and phrases based
on actual search engine use.
Next, look for good results over an entire site that the
company claims to have successfully worked for. You want to
see a wide range of positions over a number of different
search engines using different keywords or phrases for the
entire site. Request a report for any client the company
claims to have done well for. This report should show good
positions on a number of the most popular search engines
for a variety of different, popular keywords and phrases.
When you are checking out search engine optimization
companies, make sure they have actually done the work they
are claiming to have done. Some companies will use other
company's results in order to get you to sign on with them.
If you are in doubt, call the company they are showing you
results for, and ask for the name of their search engine
optimization company.
It's important to keep in mind that a successful search
engine optimization campaign will result in maximum
exposure across a wide range of popular search engines
using a variety of keywords and phrases. This is the
formula for a successful campaign, and you should keep it
always in the forefront of your marketing strategy.
Ask the search engine optimization company you are
considering for a report that shows you rankings across a
number of popular search engines for a period of at least
six months. Remember: search engine marketing is a process
that is continual, and you need a company that not only
understands this, but keeps constant tabs on your search
engine positions. That company must also be able to adjust
its strategy in the event that search engine rankings drop.
Since search engine marketing is an on-going process, your
positions must be constantly monitored. If you want your
search engine optimization company to do this for you,
request a sample of a monthly report. It is essential that
this report should show rankings for the most popular
search engines. Don't be impressed by a report that only
shows great results for a limited number of small search
engines. These are fairly easy results to acquire. Also
confirm that the popular search engine results they are
showing you are indeed the popular search engines
currently.
Be sure the sample report the company shows you is in a
format that you can easily understand. For example, it
could be in the form of a chart that covers a period of at
least six months and presents data such as the top 50
positions broken down on a monthly basis or the top 5 pages
each month. Then, ascertain that the company you are
considering actually monitors these positions or pages
every month, and that the sample report they show you
includes findings and recommendations for the specific
site. This insures that the company will actively monitor
and make adjustments to their strategy on a continual basis
rather than simply gather statistics on your positions. You
need a company that is actively participant in your search
engine marketing campaign, not just an information
gatherer.
Obviously, your finances have to figure into your choice of
company, but bear in mind that a search engine optimization
company is crucial the success of your marketing campaign.
It is not just a casual accessory. If you cannot afford a
company that will do a thorough and reliable job for your
website, you might consider waiting until you do have the
finances in place.
If you have to find a company and can't wait for your
finances to catch up, you may be able to find an affordable
company that will also be able to supply quality, reliable
work, such as a fairly new company. Just remember that
there are risks involved with using a company without a
proven track record - and that risk is your money! Don't
take that leap unless the company can supply you with a
least a few references.
References are the most reliable indicator of a good
company. Don't use a company that won't show your
references because of any reason, confidentiality included.
Remember - even doctors will provide references! The firm
you choose should provide you with a minimum of two
references, one that is from the past, and one that is
current.
When you contact these references, be prepared to ask
precise, specific questions so that neither of your time is
wasted. Ask them what their experience was like with the
company, such as their availability to answer questions and
deal with problems and their ability to meet deadlines. Ask
the reference to rate the overall performance of the
company.
Find out if the company requested that the reference make
significant changes to their web pages that affected the
visitors coming to their site. You are looking for a search
engine optimization company that can balance the needs of
both search engines and site visitors without compromising
either.
The most essential question to ask is whether the work of
the search engine optimization company resulted in higher
profits for the reference. Without profits, it doesn't
matter whether your positions are at the top of the list or
not.
