A Practical Guide To Search Engine Optimizing Your Web Site
Created by-Stensgaard Lindholm
For any business with an online presence, the key to increasing site traffic, as well as, increasing sales and profits, is by utilizing search engine optimization. The way to do this is by educating yourself on what tactics do and do not work in terms of optimizing your site and increasing search page rank. This article contains a number of search engine optimization tips.
For search engine optimization, the first thing you should do is register with Google and other search engines (such as Yahoo! and Bing). You can visit a special site, fill out a very short form with your website address and you'll likely be "crawled," in other words added, by that search engine faster.
A great way to get more people to your site is to list your site with Google so that when people search through Google your page will come up. Listing your site in this way, will give you a vast venue where thousands of people will be introduced to your site and to your links.
Today most major search engines offer specialized local listings. For websites with any kind of real-word presence, registering with these local listings will improve search engine performance. Any additional features of the local listings - like maps and reviews - should be taken advantage of to increase a website's total exposure.
Search engines can only search what is actually in your website, and not what is in an image description. Try and stay away from image description. Instead you should put a text box below the actual image so the words can be searched for in a search engine.
When linking back to your homepage through other parts of your website, be sure that you are linking to the domain name and not /index.html or another iteration that has something appended to the end. Your homepage will be placed higher on search results pages if you help search engines recognize that the domain name is the anchor of your site, rather than confusing the search engines by having two (or more) separate homepages (such as /index.html).
Make sure that you have a good description tag, so that search engines will direct your target customers to your website. Such a tag should not exceed the length of thirty words. Never exceed 100 kilobytes on this sort of page.
Do not create a site with search engine optimization as your primary goal. This won't make your site money, but the customers do. Build your site with the visitor in mind. Ask yourself: "Is my site fun, enjoyable, or useful?" If you answered no to all of those, you will not see hits and clicks from interested people.
To know if your search engine optimization is working or not, it's important to keep an eye on your search rankings. Use tools from different search engines to monitor your page rank. Look at your site's referrer log on a regular basis to see where visitors are coming from and what terms are leading them to your site.
Pick a keyword for the article that you are writing. It doesn't matter how good your article is if nobody can find it during an Internet search. Use long tail keywords as much as possible. Some search engines have a keyword tool that will allow you to see what keywords have been searched the most; choose something that has a couple hundred hits each month.
Make use of online advertising. Two good ideas are adbrite and adwords. DIY SEO might not be enough for some major ranking increases. Advertisers are specialists at increasing hit counts. It's especially helpful when the advertiser is someone big like Google.
Google uses domain names as part of it's ranking algorithm, so ensure that yours includes some of the keywords you've identified as most important. If you're selling hardware and your domain name is JoesGoods.com, no one will find you. You need to have a clear, concise domain name which indicates who you are and what you do.
How Does Search Engine Optimization Work
When you choose an SEO services company, remember that they are working for you. If they ask you to provide a lot of information that you have no way of having, they are not doing their job. For example, if they ask you to provide keywords, that's a sign you should run away! The SEO services company you hire should generate strong keywords for you, not vice versa!
Use the right anchor text when setting up links on your website. There are certain words to be avoided that do not help your optimization. Someone who specializes in search engine optimization will be able to help you find the proper anchor text to use.
Which Factors Are Involved In Search Engine Optimization
The breadcrumb link trail for your webpages - the hierarchical line that shows where a particular page is located (i.e. main>>sales>>bags>>Brand) - can be incorporated into the page's listing on the search engine results pages. You will need to learn the latest coding methods, like RDFa and micro-data, to make these breadcrumbs appear. It can be worth it to add such functionality to your search engine listings.
Search engines hate frames, so if you need to use them make sure to include a noframes tag and to create a full version of your site for the noframes client. If the search engines spiders can't read your site then you are never going to move anywhere in the ranks. Creating a noframes site will ensure that you can even be indexed in the search engine.
When you choose an SEO services company, remember that they are working for you. If they ask you to provide a lot of information that you have no way of having, they are not doing their job. For example, if they ask you to provide keywords, that's a sign you should run away! The SEO services company you hire should generate strong keywords for you, not vice versa!
The abyss is no place for a great website. Make sure that you're paying close attention to the tips contained within this article. You will get a feel for how search engines operate, and from there, you can start to format your site so that it's search engine-friendly and eventually able to rank highly in your market.
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