Search Engine Optimization is a process of selecting the most appropriate targeted keyword phrases related to your site and ensuring that this ranks your site highly in search engines so that when someone searches for specific phrases it returns your site on tops. It basically involves fine tuning the content of your site along with the HTML and Meta tags and also involves appropriate link building process.

The most popular search engines are Google, Yahoo, MSN Search, AOL and Ask Jeeves. Search engines keep their methods and ranking algorithms secret, to get credit for finding the most valuable search results and to deter spam pages from clogging those results. A search engine may use hundreds of factors while ranking the listings where the factors themselves and the weight each carries may change continually. Algorithms can differ so widely that a web page that ranks number 1 in a particular search engine could rank number 200 in another search engine.

New sites need not be submitted to search engines to be listed. A simple link from a well established site will get the search engines to visit the new site and begin to spider its contents. It can take a few days to even weeks from the referring of a link from such an established site for all the main search engine spiders to commence visiting and indexing the new site.

If you are unable to research and choose keywords and work on your own search engine ranking, you may want to hire someone to work with you on these issues.

Search engine marketing and promotion companies, will look at the plan for your site and make recommendations to increase your search engine ranking and website traffic. If you wish, they will also provide ongoing consultation and reporting to monitor your website and make recommendations for editing and improvements to keep your site traffic flow and your search engine ranking high. Normally your search engine optimization experts work with your web designer to build an integrated plan right away so that all aspects of design are considered at the same time.

There are few elements that you must have when doing search engine optimization and that is using keywords in page titles and understanding keyword density.

Use Keywords in Page Titles

It is recommended to use keywords in page titles itself. This title tag is different from a Meta tag, but it is worth considering it in relation to them. Whatever text one places in the title tag between the title and title portions will appear in the title bar of browsers when they view the web page. Some browsers also append whatever you put in the title tag by adding their own name, as for example Microsoft Internet Explorer or OPERA.

The actual text you use in the title tag is one of the most important factors in how a search engine may decide to rank your web page. In addition, all major web crawlers will use the text of your title tag as the text they use for the title of your page in your listings.

If you have designed your website as a series of websites or linked pages and not just a single Home Page, you must bear in mind that each page of your website must be search engine optimized. The title of each page i.e. the keywords you use on that page and the phrases you use in the content will draw traffic to your site.

The unique combination of these words and phrases and content will draw customers using different search engine terms and techniques, so be sure you capture all the keywords and phrases you need for each product, service or information page.

The most common mistake made by small business owners when they first design their website is to place their business name or firm name in every title of every page. Actually most of your prospective customers do not bother to know the name of your firm until after they have looked at your site and decided it is worth book marking.

So, while you want your business name in the title of the home page, it is probably a waste of valuable keywords and space to put it in the title line of every page on your site. Why not consider putting keywords in the title so that your page will display closer to the top of the search engine listing.

Dedicating first three positions for keywords in title avoiding the stop words like and, at and the like is crucial in search engine optimization.

Keyword Density

Keyword density is an indicator of the number of times the selected keyword appears in the web page. But mind you, keywords should not be over used, but should be just sufficient enough to appear at important places.

If you repeat your keywords with every other word on every line, then your site will probably be rejected as an artificial site or spam site.

Keyword density is always expressed as a percentage of the total word content on a given web page.

Suppose you have 100 words on your web page not including HMTL code used for writing the web page, and you use a certain keyword for five times in the content. The keyword density on that page is got by simply dividing the total number of keywords, by the total number of words that appear on your web page.

The accepted standard for a keyword density is between 3 percent and 5 percent, to get recognized by the search engines and you should never exceed it.

Remember, that this rule applies to every website page on your site. It also applies to not just to one keyword but also a set of keywords that relates to a different product or service. The keyword density should always be between 3 percent and 5 percent.

Simple steps to check the density:

1. Copy and paste the content from an individual web page into a word processing software program like Word or Word Perfect.

2. Go to the Edit menu and click Select All. Now go to the Tools menu and select Word Count. Write down the total number of words in the page.

3. Now select the Find function on the Edit menu. Go to the Replace tab and type in the keyword you want to find. Replace that word with the same word, so you do not change the text.

4. When you complete the replace function, the system will provide a count of the words you replaced. That gives the number of times you have used the keyword in that page.

5. Using the total word count for the page and the total number of keywords you can now calculate the keyword density.

By doing proper Search Engine Optimization for your website you will be able to push your site into better position. But the process of choosing the most appropriate and suitable targeted keyword phrases related to your site is a must and must be carried out properly. This is to ensure that all the keywords you used will ranks your site highly in search engines so that when someone searches for specific phrases it returns your site on tops.

It is essential to tweaking the content of your site with the highly searches or your preferable keywords along with HTML and Meta tags and also involves appropriate link building process.