If you operate any type of online business, then it is vital
for your to understand the basics of Search Engine Optimization,
commonly referred to as SEO. You will find it almost impossible
to succeed if you don't because your competition will likely be
engaging in effective SEO practices to promote their business.
Search engines are the most popular method that people use to
find information online. All they have to do is type in a
keyword or a phrase and they will get hits instantly with sites
that are to have relevant information on that subject. Search
engines have crawlers that continually check the internet for
information and index it. This is what allows them to be able to
come up with information you are looking for so quickly.
There are hundreds of different search engines out there, and
each one has slightly different criteria for how they rank web
pages. You need to focus on the larger ones that almost
everybody uses though in order to have an effective SEO plan in
place. Goggle is the most used search engine followed by Yahoo.
MSN is quickly coming up in the ranks though so you should pay
attention to it as well.
Search engines take their job of indexing and providing
material very serious. They don't want to index information that
is duplicated or that isn't going to offer what the consumer is
looking for. They know it is important to their status in the
online world to be able to offer the very best information or
they will lose business to other search engines. While it is
free to use a search engine, they make millions from advertisers
that want to get seen on their web page.
The concepts of SEO are quite simple and complex at the same
time. The overall concept is to write material for your web
pages that contains the keywords and phrases that consumers are
the most likely to look for. It can be difficult though to right
material that meets the indexing criteria of the search engine
crawlers yet at the same time it is readable to consumers
instead of being chopping and not making sense.
In order to get your website optimized as effectively as
possible you will need to incorporate several different
concepts. Take a close look at what you have to offer and the
competition you have. Do research to discover the most popular
keywords and phrases that consumers are using in your target
market.
There are several online sites that offer you this information,
but at a glance you can easily type in any keyword or phrase and
see what type of results you get. Take a look at the total
number of hits. You will need to incorporate a variety of
keywords and phrases to cover the most popular but you also want
to incorporate creative alternatives that don't have as much
competition associated with them.
You need to place these keywords and phrases in the title pages
for your web pages. Make sure they are also placed in the Meta
tags which is where the description of your web page will be
listed. You won't have very many characters for the title or the
Meta tag so choose your wording very carefully. You may find it
is effective to have two different SEO campaigns in place with
different keywords and phrases. This is an excellent way to find
out which one is most effective. When you write material for SEO
make sure the keywords or phrases appear in the opening
paragraph and several times throughout the text.
The term keyword density refers to the percentage of the words
that fit into that category for the overall text. It is a good
idea to aim for a minimum keyword density of 5% and a maximum of
no more than 15%. You want to use it as many times as possible
for it to make sense but if you repeat it too often the material
isn't going to get a good search engine placement and it will be
distracting to readers.
Links to your site should be implemented in various locations
to help you increase your search engine rankings. This is
because each time the crawlers for the search engines look for
new material to index, they will also pick up your information
on those sites. If you aren't willing to put the time and effort
into effective SEO practices for your online business you will
need to hire someone to do it for you. It is almost impossible
to have an effective online business without this practice
continually in place.
