Basics of SEO

Nowadays, even the smallest company uses the Internet as a main tool in building a customer base, keeping in contact with their clients and this is also their most basic means of advertising.



Designing a company web site is cheap and effective, not to mention essential because the world wide web is the only medium that offers instantaneous information access to millions of users around the globe.



Any web developer worth his salt should know about search engine optimization or SEO.



This is the key towards building an effective web site that would get a lot of hits and visitors. A web site that nobody visits is useless so the challenge lies in leading Internet users to visit your web site.



Thus, your web site need to be "found" when users type in keywords in search engines such as Google, Yahoo, MSN, Altavista, AOL and others.



Once a keyword relating to the products or services that you offer is keyed into a search engine, a direct link to your web site should emerge on top of the list.



You should employ search engine optimization techniques to lead traffic your way, and get more hits that would later on lead to more profit for your company, which is your goal in the first place.



Here are some tips on how you can make it to the top of the list of search engines, and use your SEO techniques to benefit your web site and your company:



1. If you have an existing web site and domain, just optimize the one that you currently have instead of purchasing a new domain.



It will take some time before your web site will show up in a particular search engine, like Google, so it better to use the one that you currently have instead of switching to a new one.



2. Know who your target audience is and aim for them.



If you are in the manufacturing industry and a user types in your product in a search engine, then you would immediately have your target right in front of you.



As soon as the user hits the Enter button or clicks on 'Search', then the person will be lead to your web site.



Make sure that your target market will get 'hooked' on your web site. Once the search engines show the link to your web site, their job is done.



What you should do next is to make sure that your visitor will not leave your web site without them trying out your products or services, or at least leaving some pertinent information so that you can contact them in the future for marketing and advertising purposes.



When hitting a particular target market, learn about their interests, location and age to have an idea of what you can offer them in return.



Also, you can somehow link their interests to your products and services.



3. Search for the right keyword.



You should be creative, persistent and flexible when looking for the keyword or keyword phrases to use in optimizing your web site.



Google and Yahoo offer some tools and tips on how you can come up with keywords that will yield results.



Do not settle for just one keyword. You can also vary the words and phrases that you use for each page on your web site so that you can have more hits.



4. Consider your target market when designing your web site.



The design itself would include the general theme of the web site. You should also pay attention to smaller details such as color and font style and size.



Make sure that the web site is user-friendly and do not forget to insert helpful articles, tips, hints and related links that can be shared to other users.



It is a good thing to have an option to send a link or an article to a friend, which will add more users and increase your client base.



There should also be various ways to browse through your web site, to fit each user.



A person might find it to difficult use the scroll down option so you should also provide hyperlinks which are accessible to them.



5. Concentrate on the web site content.



Regularly update the content of your web site so that old and new users can find something new when browsing through your site.



Make the content brief and precise. Writing a content which has more than 600 words will make the users lose interest, since most of them do not actually read but just skim through the text.



Strive to be the best and most comprehensive web site and you will make your mark when it comes to information about the products and services that you offer.



It helps a lot to pay attention to detail, too.



Finally, keeping your web site's content updated is a must.



Spread the word about your web site and use the basic search engine optimization techniques and you will surely gain positive results once users visit your web site.

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Newer is not Always Better When it Involves Search Engine Optimization

We live in a world where everybody wants the latest and greatest, somewhere along the way we have come to the conclusion that the newer something is the better. If we are buying a CD it has to be the latest release from the new one hit wonder, we don't care if the song writer couldn't tell melody from harmony or that the singer is incapable of carrying a tune, all that matters is that it's new. Each fall hundreds of people scramble to get to car dealerships, frantic to drive the next years models, barely capable of waiting for them to be unloaded off the truck, it doesn't matter if we are six months behind on car payments on last years model which is in perfect running condition, we're blinded by all the bells and whistles that the new cars have to offer. People will stand in a long line, overnight, in an electrical storm to simply to spend an unhealthy amount of money on the latest electronic gadget just because it is brand new, we don't care that in just a few months it will be a fraction of the cost, we have to have it now.



Even internet service suffers from the right now syndrome. For years we were content with dialup service. Sure it was slow but it was that or nothing. Heck we hardly noticed that it took hours to download a simple, days to upload a couple of pictures, download a video... that was practically unheard off. We didn't know any better. Now that the world has found out about all the new options for internet service we have to have that. It doesn't matter that it is double the monthly cost or we have to default on are student loans in order to purchase the necessary equipment. If it is cordless, faster, and designed with the latest technology we have to have it...right now.



We don't care if the old stuff is made with better materials, last longer, and is cheaper. In our minds old equals junk.



Search engine optimization is one spot where we should force ourselves to shed our weird inhibitions about old stuff. When it comes to search engine optimization, age rules over youth.



Search engine optimization is the art and science of making web pages attractive to the search engines. The more attractive a web site appears (search engines are attracted, not to beauty, but to repetitious algorithms) the higher it ranks in the search engines search result. A low ranking could potentially be the kiss of death to an internet based business because studies have shown the internet users seldom look past the second page of hits.



Search engines use web crawlers to determine a websites ranking.



Older websites and the webmasters who manage them have had more time to develop and maintain their algorithms. They are already itemized and ranked by the search engines, in some cases it can take three months for a web crawler to get around to spidering a brand new website that has been submitted to the search engine, old sites are already appearing and gaining customer recognition. If an older site has been around long enough to have earned a loyal customer base, even if a shuffle in the rankings causes the aged web site to be bumped from prime ranking position, loyal customers will still look for it.

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Natural Search Engine Optimization or Pay-Per-Click

The internet is literally like having the world at ones fingertips. Not only does it provide families a cheap way to stay in touch (e-mail and instant messaging), it allows students to cram for finals and write last minute papers in the middle of the night, long after the library has closed, but the internet is suddenly a way for the smallest business to break into a global market.



Let's pretend that you are the owner of a small novelty store in a small rural town in the Midwest. Most of your merchandise is handmade trinkets and crafts created by the residents of the small town (on commission so the up front cost of most of your merchandise is minimal). Although business is slow during the winter months during the tourist season you turn a tidy profit. One day as a Chicago tourist purchases a photo of the late afternoon sun glinting off a herd of sleeping cattle she mentions that she wishes you had a website so she could purchase quaint Christmas gifts for her family. As she leaves the story, her wrapped photograph tucked under her arm, you stare at your computer.



The internet could be a cheap way to increase your profit margin. You already have your physical business, a website would simply be an addition. You look at all the pretty knickknacks arranged throughout the store. If you expanded your business to include a website you could sell mid-western trinkets all over the world. It wouldn't take that much time. You have a friend that would design and teach you how to manage a website for free. You could answer questions during the slow times when you're not doing anything anyway. It would be a win-win situation.



In theory you're correct. A website could be a lucrative addition to your business.



It is possible to design website, register a domain name, and submit it to a website. But what happens next. Just like the physical shop the website will not do any business if there isn't any traffic. No one will visit your online store if they don't know about it.



The chances are good that your regular customers will probably check out your website, the ones that made items you have featured will probably tell their friends and families about it, but the chances are good that they won't buy anything, why should they pay for shipping and handling when they can drive a couple of miles and purchase it directly from you. Your tourist customers might buy from your online store but only if they know about it and since you probably waited until the slow season to create your website it will be months before you can tell them.



You could look into search engine optimization.



You might even want to consider something called pay-per-click.



Pay-per-click is a search engine that bases its rankings on something that is called a bid position. A website owner bids for an elevated position in the ranking when a certain keyword is typed into the search bar. The higher the bid, the higher the ranking.



Businesses that use pay-per-click prefer it to natural search engine optimization because it's an easy efficient way to improve a sites ranking and increase its traffic. Pay-per-click also lets webmaster maintain control over the search engine campaign.



People who for go pay-per-click to natural search engine optimization say that the cost of pay-per-click is too high.

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How Title and Meta Tags are used for Search Engine Optimization

When it comes to title tags and search engine optimization there are a few question website owners typically ask. Does each individual web page need a different title? Is there a maximum length for title tags? Is there a title tag limit? Are title Meta tags a good idea?



The World Wide Web Consortium requires that every single HTML document must have a title element in the head section. They also state that the title element should be used to identify each individual pages content.



The title tag plays four separate roles on the internet.



The first role the title tag fulfills is what librarians, other webmasters, and directory editors use to link to other websites. A well written title tag is far more likely to get faster reviews then one that is sloppy or incomprehendable.



The title tag is what is displayed on the visitor's browser. By displaying the title tag in the visitors browser the web user knows exactly where they are if they have to return to the site later on. Internet Explorer typically tires to display the first ninety-five characters of the title tag.



Search engines display the title tag as the most important piece of information available to web searchers.



A good title tag should be able to clearly indicate the webpage's contents to the web user. A clear title tag is more likely to be placed in the user's favorites list. The normal length for a good clear title tag is normally under sixty-five characters long. Title tags should be typed in the title case. Headers should also be typed in the title case.



When it comes to search engine optimization, the home page title is normally the first thing the web crawlers look at when they are ranking a webpage. Your website is introduced by your homepage title.

It is important to make sure that your title tag sounds credible.



Every single page of your website must have its very own unique title. A Meta tag is a special HTML tag that provides information about a web page. Meta tags do not affect the display of a webpage. Although Meta tags are placed directly into the HTML code, they are invisible to web users. Search engines use Meta tags to help correctly categorize a page. Meta tags are a critical part of search engine optimization.



It is important to remember that Meta tags are not a magic solution to making your website a raging success. The most valuable feature Meta tags offer to website owners is the ability to control (to a certain degree) how their web pages are described by the search engines. Meta tags can also let website owners prevent having their website indexed at all.



Meta tag keywords are a way to provide extra test for web crawler based search engines to index. While this is great in theory several of the major search engines have crawlers that ignore the HTML and focus entirely on the body of the webpage.

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How Google's PageRank Determines Search Engine Optimization

Some internet search engines are set up to look for keywords throughout a webpage, they then use a mathematical equation that takes in the amount of time the keywords appears on the webpage and factors it with the location of the keywords to determine the ranking of the webpage.



Other internet search engines use a process that judges the amount of times a webpage is linked to other web pages to determine how a webpage is ranked. The process of using links to determine search engine ranking is called link analysis.



Keyword searches and link analysis are both part of a routine internet search engine procedure called search engine optimization. Search engine optimization is the art and science of making a website attractive to search engines, the more attractive a website appears to the search engine the higher it will rank in searches and in the world of internet searches ranking is everything.



As 2006 faced its last weeks, Google was the internet search engine that most internet users preferred. Approximately fifty percent of the times a consumer turned to a search engine for their internet needs they turned to Google. Yahoo! was the second favorite.



Most of Google's popularity is credited to its preferred form of search engine optimization, a trademarked program Google dubbed PageRank. When PageRank was patented the patent was assigned to Stanford University.



PageRank was designed by Larry Page, (the name is a play on his name) and Sergey Brin while they were students at Stanford University as part of a research project they were working on about internet search engines.



PageRank is based on the link analyses algorithm. PageRank is described as a link analysis algorithm that assigns a numerical weight to each individual element of a hyperlink set of documents. The purpose is to measure its relative important with the set. The numerical weight assigned to any element is called PageRank of E. PR(E) is the denotation used.



PageRank operates on a system similar to a voting booth. Each time it finds a hyperlink to a webpage, PageRank counts that hyperlink as a vote that supports the webpage. The more pages that link to the page, the more votes of support the webpage receives. If PageRank comes across a website that has absolutely no links connecting it to another webpage then it is not awarded any votes at all.



Tests done with a model like PageRank have shown that the system is not infallible.



The HITS algorithm is an alternate to the PageRank algorithm.



Google's powers that be take a dim view on spamdexing. In 2005 Google designed and activated a program called nofollow, a program they designed to allow webmasters and bloggers to create links that PageRank would ingnore. The same system was also used to keep spamdexing to a minumum.



Google has designed PageRank to be an eight-unit measurement. Google displays the value PageRank places on each website directly beside each website it displays.



It has been proposed that a version of PageRank should be used to replace ISI impact factor so that the quality of a journal citation can be determined.

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