Search engine optimization or SEO, is the art and science of making your websites pages appear attractive to the search engines. The better optimized your webpages are, the higher the ranking it will receive from a search engines web crawlers and spiders. The higher it ranks, the more traffic your website will receive. The more traffic your website receives, of course, the more profit you will be able to generate. The key to all of this is good Internet search engine optimization.
Why is having a high ranking website so important to the future success of your online business? Studies have shown that consumers seldom view websites that don't rank a spot on of the first two pages the search engines displays. Websites that receive a ranking that places them on the third page (or any other page subsequent to that) see a significantly lower amount of traffic at their websites then one that is ranked on the second page. There is even a staggering difference between the first and second page. In the world of e-commerce ranking and strong search engine optimization is paramount.
At first, search engine optimization may feel like trying to rappel down the Grand Canyon. There is a huge scary world full of big words like web crawlers, PageRank, Meta tags, and algorithms. You may have never heard of any of these things. A quick internet search of the world algorithm doesn't help; all you may get is a printout of strange symbols and numbers arranged in complex algebraic equations.
Sit back, take a deep breath, and try to relax. Search engine optimization is much more simple then you may think.
Algorithms really are every bit as complex as they look. Simply defined they are a finite set of carefully defined instructions. Most, if not all, computer programs are designed with strict algorithms.
PageRank is simply the program Google designed to search, index, and rank it registered webpage's. PageRank operates on a link analysis algorithm. PageRank is credited for Google incredible success.
Web crawlers are tools search engines use to browse the World Wide Web in a methodical, automated manner. When web crawlers are browsing websites they are looking for algorithms.
Meta tags are special HTML tags that provide information to about a web page. Meta tags are written directly into the title tag and are only visible to the search engine.
The reality of search engine optimization is that you can start to optimize your website without any knowledge at all of the technical stuff involved in search engine optimization. Simply stated the very first step in designing a website that is going to be well ranked by the search engines is to create a content rich site. What this means is that you must cram as much information about your product into your website as you possibly can.
The third step to search engine optimization is to fill your site with keywords that will attract the web crawler's attention. The final step in a wonderfully optimized website is to submit it to the search engine that will compliment it.
Lastly, there is Link Popularity. What is this link popularity anyway, and why do you need it? Link popularity is a score that is accessed to a web site based on how many external and internal links are pointing or linking to any particular page. External links would include those that come from any other web site other than your own whereas internal links would be those that come from within the same domain name. Link popularity is also based not only on the quantity of links but the quality of those links as well. Therefore, to have a good link popularity score, it is not necessarily required to have a large number of links pointing to your site but rather a good number of quality links.
Search engine optimization experts and SEO users are well aware of how competitive the search engine ranking world has become over the last few years. After all, the number of web pages that are being indexed by search engines every day has not only doubled or tripled, but has quadrupled itself over and over as the years go by. Furthermore, a growing number of the webmaster population is becoming familiar enough with search engine optimization techniques to begin to pose a threat to those sites making massive SEO campaigns.
Not too long ago, the majority of webmasters were unaware of the concept of SEO, and, for that matter, hadn't even considered search engines as a part of their marketing strategy over which they had any realistic control. Essentially, the only way to communicate with search engines that was understood at the time was placing keywords in the Meta tags of the webpage ? which had little to no real impact on the ranking when all was said and done. At that time, it too little to no effort to achieve very favorable search engine ranks in even the largest search engines. Even the more competitive areas were still within the realm of possibility for a new website.
Today, on the other hand, the opposite is true. Even when it comes to keywords and key phrases that nobody uses for searching can pose an obstacle for achieving a respectable search engine ranking unless you are extremely skilled with your SEO strategy. Even then, search engine rankings that may have been achieved one day may only be there for a single day, replace the next day by someone who has done something slightly better. The problem becomes that much worse when it comes to businesses with new websites. New websites see very few results using search engine optimization strategies. The older your website, the better its chances of seeing practical results from search engine optimization efforts. This is why it is important to consider your website a long term investment. The longer it's around, the better your chances of obtaining favorable search engine ranking.
At this point in the internet marketing industry, it is getting to the point that webmasters, website owners, and search engine optimization experts need to refocus their efforts on obtaining better targeted traffic that can be transformed into customers, instead of simply trying to grab at a great rank with any keyword at all. Unfortunately, most webmasters are still looking for short-term, instant results. This is something that today's search engines just aren't prepared to provide.
This is not to create the misunderstanding that search engine optimization has no value whatsoever. After all, achieving a #9 position is much more favorable than achieving the #57 spot. However, it simply means that those coveted top three spots should no longer be the single most important goal of the internet marketers who are using search engine optimization to help their results with search engines.
Instead, the focus of SEO efforts should be using the right keywords, instead of seeking the best space in the search results. It's time to see the big picture, instead of just the ranking that can be achieved for a twenty-four hour period, six months from now.
The trick is to make sure that the content in your website is of high quality. This means that it has interesting, usable information that is unique from everything else that is out there. It needs to be creative, practical, and well written. This means that rewriting your competitor's material is out of the question, and simply copying content from public domain articles is completely useless. You need to think about what your website is really about, and come up with your own unique angle and thoughts that will be interesting and useful to your readers. This is not at all easy, and may require the assistance of writing and web content professionals to get you started, but it should be considered a long-term investment that will be well worth your effort when you start to turn the traffic that you do have into a high percentage of new and returning customers. Remember, everybody out there is trying to snatch up all of the ?best? keywords and churning out fast content to get those phrases used the most. You need to make your site different by using great keywords, but placing them within exceptional content that will actually keep the visitors that you achieve.
Both Pj Germain & Sameer Sharma are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
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