What is search engine optimization?
Search engine optimization simply means that a web page has been constructed in such a manner that the search engines will rank the page highly (near or at the top of the list of search results) for a given search phrase.
There are two forms of search engine optimization:
- Ethical
Those actions which will assist search engines to index a web page properly (for relevancy).
Ethically optimized web pages tend to be content rich and are of great value to people searching for information on the internet. This makes them valuable to the search engines as well.
- Unethical
Those actions which try to trick a search engine into indexing a web page favorably for a given search phrase.
Unethical search engine optimization includes the use of:
- Doorway pages
- Hidden or small text
- Keyword stuffing
Search engines view the use of these methods as spamming.
How effective is search engine optimization?
Very!
An optimized page will use words or combinations of words (known as keywords) that are searched for regularly. The web pages will be constructed so that search engines will display them at or near the top of the list of search results for those keywords.
Every search engine wants to list the most relevant results for any given search. The more relevant the search results are, the more popular the search engine will become (and the more money it will make).
A web page that has been properly optimized will contain web content that is constructed around a particular theme and any search on that theme will result in the web page being in the list of search results.
How do you optimize web pages?
There are three options available to you for search engine optimization:
- Use a paid service (can be very expensive).
- Use SitebuildIt (You have to pay a small one time fee, but is extremely good value for your money).
- Do it yourself (free, but there is a large learning curve and you have no guarantees).
Use a paid service
The best paid search engine optimization service are:
Use SiteBuildIt
The simplest way to write search engine optimized web pages is to use SiteBuildIt.
SiteBuildIt is a paid service which enables you to setup a search engine optimized website.
There is no other service available on the web which comes close to the value for money you will get from SiteBuildIt which allows you to:
If you do not want to pay the huge fees charged by search engine optimization companies, are not interested in learning search engine optimization but you want total control of your website and how it will be built, then you need to use SiteBuildIt.
Do it yourself
There are two basic stages to search engine optimization:
- Keyword research
- Writing keyword rich web pages
Keyword research
Optimizing web pages is all about providing good content that answers the specific questions asked by people who are searching the web.
The goal of every search engine is to provide the most relevant web pages for any given search request.
The key is to find out what people are asking when they search the web for information.
These questions can be single words, or simple phrases and are known as keywords and keyword phrases.
For example - if a person was searching for the best price for an engagement ring, they might type in a single keyword like "jeweler" or "jewelry" or "ring" or they might type in simple keyword phrases like "diamond ring" or "engagement ring".
So how do you find out what people are searching for?
The best tool for researching keywords is WordTracker.
WordTracker will allow you to carry out an intensive search for keywords related to your web page content and will provide you with:
The free trial version is adequate for preliminary research (for finding broad categories), but the paid version is vital for narrowing the search for keywords to use in your web page.
You can get a paid membership for one day (which sometimes lasts for three) and do all the research necessary for a number of websites.
Your goal should be to make a list of as many keywords and keyword phrases as possible that are related to the theme of your website.
Once you have this list, you need to choose keywords and phrases that have little competition (and have a high KEI number).
Your research should be done for the Google search engine as it is the biggest and a lot of the other search engines are trying to emulate it.
Writing keyword rich web pages
Important fact #1 - Because the following information is free, it contains only the basics of search engine optimization. It is not a comprehensive guide and there are no guarantees implied or otherwise. But the information will get you started and it will help the search engines to index your website.
Important fact #2 - If your chosen keyword or keyword phrase is very competitive, no amount of search engine optimization will get the web page to the top of the search engines.
The most important tag in search engine optimization is the title tag. It is important that you use your keyword or keyword phrase in the title tag and preferably near the beginning of the tag.
For example - The keyword phrase for this page is "search engine optimization" and the title tag for this page is:
<title>How to use search engine optimization to increase website traffic</title>
The only meta tags that are important for search engine optimization are the "keywords" and the "description" meta tags.
The "keywords" meta tag should contain your keywords (only once) and the "description" meta tag should contain a brief description of the web page and must contain your keywords.
For example the keyword phrase for this page is "search engine optimization" and the meta tags for this web page are:
<meta name="keywords" content="search engine optimization">
<meta name="description" content="How to increase website traffic using search engine optimization.">
Every web page has a heading and it is important to use your keyword or keyword phrase in the header tags.
For example - the keyword phrase for this page is "search engine optimization" and the header tag for this page is:
<h1>How to use search engine optimization to increase website traffic</h1>
If you use any images in your web page, it is important to use your keyword or keyword phrase in the alt tags.
You should use your keyword or keyword phrase near the beginning of the first sentence on your web page.
There after you should try to use your keyword or keyword phrase in each paragraph.
If, when reading your web page, you think that you have used your keyword or keyword phrase too many times, you probably have.
The whole point of a web page is to give your reader great content, so don't annoy them with repetitive keywords, make your web pages easy to read.
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