SEO or search engine optimization is something that every web owner and creator should be aware of. Even if a website owner hires an expert to carry out the online marketing, understanding the very basics and how it really can improve a websites performance and popularity is important.

Sometimes search engines can ban a domain name for what is called spamming. This is when it contains far too many keywords (keyword stuffing) or key phrases, and when a black hat type of SEO has been carried out. Key words are highly important from a search engine point of view. Optimizing a website means starting at the beginning, and including key-words relevant to the business adds value and brings to the website the visitors it is targeting. In basic terms, website content should be built around those important key words, which can be expanded upon over time.

Focusing on main keywords and phrases, then expanding them by looking at reports easily available on the net, or by looking at competitors and words they are using, is imperative to setting up and preparing a site so that search engines are easily able to crawl the site without encountering problems. Confusion can be created with a site that has every page aimed at a different target audience. The density, or how many times a key word or phrase appears is hugely important, to avoid being banned by a search engine for ’spamming’.

The major engines, such as Yahoo, Google and AOL, need to be able to visit a website and make evaluations in order for a person to find that site under a relevant search. Therefore, helping a site improve the way it ranks (and in a perfect world at least on page one of certain searches), SEO is a means of making a site more valuable and can reap good benefits for any business.

Basic optimization currently states that key-words or key-phrases should appear in the last sentence and the first sentence of the text on a page. In and ideal world, it needs to appear in titles, headings, the domain name or URL, meta tags and in links to other pages. But there should be careful consideration to ensure that they do not appear too much (keyword density is vital and different experts will advise on the percentage to aim at.

A number of things in addition to on the page factors as mentioned, such as how regularly a website is updated (viewed as active in the search engines eyes), the amount of hits it already gets, the amount of quality relevant inbound links (or back-links) and how its competitors are performing. So search engine optimization cannot be a guarantee that a site will be ranked in the top spot for a certain key word, however even the basics can improve its performance. Problems encountered by some engines are those pages that are built, or contain, javascript, frames or flash. Although sites look amazing when built in flash, alternatives are available, or only portions of a page might contain the flash code.

There are other things to consider in order to carry out the optimization process. It is equally important to manage the off site SEO too, which involves things like writing articles to get links back to the website from other relevant and good quality popular sites. Registering with smaller search engines and submitting the domain or specific pages to relevant directories also helps.

Of course human visitors are important. A site needs to be useful to a visitor, and part of SEO is to manage the content, ensure links are fully working and that errors are not apparent. Keeping a site up to date and relevant is not only vital to search engines, but to the actual visitors looking around a site.

Mike Gates is an online marketer and recommends HostGator for hosting. HostGator is the cheapest web host. You can use hostgator coupon to get discount at the time of sign up.

Tagged with: • • •

Filed under: Search Engine Optimization

Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!