After email, Search Engines are the most used feature on the Internet today. O.k, O.k, I already hear some yelling in their monitor that MySpace and Youtube have been getting more page views/month than Google lately, but the fact of the matter is that Google(71.6%) and Yahoo(11.7%) have been getting 82.7% of searches in 2007 (Source: Enquisite's Zwicky).
People enter search terms or keywords of information or products that they are looking for and the Search Engines give them a list of websites with related content. These are also known as SERP's or Search Engine Result Pages. Ranking high on these results pages is the key to getting lots of targeted traffic to your website for Free.
The typical surfer will search for the information he is looking for in the 1st page of the natural results. Some will get to the 2nd page and very few will go beyond the 3rd page. So, naturally, your goal will be to reach that so desired 1st page and this is where Search Engine Optimization comes into play.
To climb the Search Engine ladder, various techniques are used to Optimize your website, both on-page and off-page.
On-Page Optimization
- Optimizing Your Tags: Your Title Tags and Meta Tags should always be focused on the 1 keyword you are trying to "rank" for. The Title Tag is very important. This is what the Search Engine will display on there result's page. Make it compelling, intriguing and include your main keyword in it. The Meta Tag is where you list your main keyword, related keywords (no more than 5) and make a description of what your page's content is all about.
- Optimizing Your Site Navigation: Very important so the human visitors of your site don't "get lost" and Search Engine Robots or Spiders can reach every page. A Site Map should be an essential element of your website for both human and robot visitors.
- Page Size and Load Time: When a page is too big or too heavy, visitors with slower Internet connections will not stick around. Even though many use high-speed connections, the vast majority of web surfers still get Online with the slower phone connections thus if your website takes more than 4 seconds to load, you have a good chance that visitor will leave to never come back. Plus, smaller web pages will enable the Spiders to crawl your site faster and deeper.
- Good HTML: Make sure that your page's code is clean, that it has no broken links and dosn't have any open tags. This will help the Search Engines to index your page, load them faster and make them easily accessible to your website users.
- Image's Alt Text: Some surfers prefer to turn the images off to accelerate loading times and providing good Alt Text will still let them know what that image is about. Also, the Alt Text is the only way the spider will know what the image is of and how it is relevant to your site. Make sure to include your main keyword in the description.
Off Page Optimization
- Building Links: Probably the most important part of SEO. Search Engines look for quality links. To earn good link popularity, your links need to be from credible websites, they need to be relevant to your content, from higher ranking sites the better and with your main keyword for the page your are linking to in the anchor text. Simply said, the Search Engines look for quality links, the quantity of links pointing to your site and the strength of those links. Build up your incoming links and your rankings will go up the S.E's results page.
- Submitting To Directories: Directory submission is one of the best ways in getting one way links to your website. When done correctly it could help promote your website and help in bringing more traffic. For the biggest list of directories you can submit your site to, Have A Look At This Page...
With the Online world getting more competitive each and every day, those who use Search Engine Optimization stand a much better chance at having a Successful Online Business.
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