Search Engine Optimazation One

Why Use Search Engine

Optimization

SEO (Search Engine Optimization), as already previously mentioned, is a sub section of search engine marketing. Unfortunately, with SEO, there are no shortcuts, and if you are looking for a way to get quick and easy results, then this isn’t it. But instead, you will need to carry out some hard work, especially in relation to the actual content of your site. Also, you will need to have plenty of patience, as results do not happen overnight. So if you are looking to improve the search engine position of your site, you should consider this very early on when looking at using SEO.

However, what are important are the following points:-

Good Content:

This is probably the single most important point you should

remember when doing SEO, especially if you want your site

to be found on the web.

Although your site may be technically perfect so that the

search engine robots find it, you will find that it will not help

if the actual content of your site is not good.

For the content of your site to be good, it should be

factually, as well as grammatically correct. But this is not

really necessary for every site that is on the web today.

However, what is important is that whatever your site is

about, the content actually needs to be unique and specific

so that it will appeal to people. Moreover, it in fact needs to

be particularly appealing to those people looking for

information or who want to find your site.

By having good content on your site, visitors will return and

eventually these visitors who return are more likely to link to

your site. Having lots of inbound links is not only great for

your site, but for search engine rankings also. It is even

better if those links are from more highly ranked sites than

your own.

Also, not only do you need to have good content on your

site, you also need to have fresh content also. If you add

new content to your site on a regular basis, you are giving

your visitors more reasons for returning to it. Because of

this, search engine robots will also visit your site more often

as soon as they notice that you are updating it regularly. So

what this means is that any new content you add, will then

be indexed much quicker in the future.

Check your Spellings

If your site is written in English, then you are probably

aware of the differences in spelling between American and

British English. Where in the UK they will write “colour”, in

the USA it is written as “color”, and the same can be said of

“optimization” and “optimization”. So if you can, why not

set up your machine so that the spell checker is set up as

USA English rather than British English. Unfortunately,

there are many words between these two languages that are

often misspelled, and in fact, the same can be said for many

other languages around the world.

Make sure your Page Titles are Descriptive:

If you make your page titles as simple, descriptive and

relevant as possible, it will make it easier for the search

engines to know what each page of your site is about. This

will then allow people to scan through the search results

they get, and are able to quickly determine if your document

contains what they are actually looking for. Also, it should

be remembered that the page title is also what is used in

order to link to your site from the results provided by the

search engines.

As a result of this, it is important to ensure that the title on

the page is one of your most important elements of your

site. In fact, some people will argue that this the most

important part of any site above all other things.

Use of Real Headings:

This is where you need to use h1-h6 (header tags) elements

for your headings. By using graphics for your headings you

are able to use any typeface you want (but search engines

will not pay much attention to this). Even if you do use the

alt attribute to specify an alternate text for heading images,

this is not anywhere near as important as using real text in a

heading element.

But if you are unable to use real text, then look at the

various image or flash replacement techniques that are

available instead. However, be aware that there may be

some risk involved in doing this. As image replacement

involves hiding text, it is quite possible that you may be

penalized by search engines for doing this. But at present,

this kind of risk seems pretty slim.

Ensure that your URL’s are search engine friendly:

It is important to use search engine friendly URL’s, as

opposed to dynamically generated ones that have a query

string (which lets the server know which data to fetch from a

database). Unfortunately, there are many search engine

robots which have difficulties with this kind of URL and they

may well stop at the question mark, and so not actually look

at the query string.

By using a search engine friendly URL; you are helping both

your ranking and users of your site. Many sites have seen

an incredible improvement just because they have changed

the URL scheme on it. However, the modification and

rewriting of a site’s URL can be a little tricky.

Getting Linked

There is no easy or sustainable way in order to solve this but

for one. The really only good way to ensure that your site

gets linked is to ensure that it contains good content. For

any site on the web, incoming links are very important,

especially for Search Engine Optimization. In fact, you may

find that this is the hardest part of SEO for you to

implement.

But many people have found that incoming links are less

important, especially where you have more specific and

unique content on your site.

Make it Accessible to All:

This is as important as all things previously mentioned. It is

important that you make your site accessible to those who

are visually impaired, as this will help search engine robots

find their way around it also. It is important to remember

that Google is blind, so even if you are not bothered whether

blind people use your site or not (which we all should be in

today’s world); you still need for it to be accessible. What

this means is that you should use real headings, paragraphs

and lists, and avoid using anything which may interfere with

the search engines spiders.

Be Careful when making a Submission:

Although this is often overrated, submitting your site to

directories and search engines can actually be useful. This

is especially important if the site happens to be new and has

not as yet been picked up by Google and many of the other

search engines that are around.

But if you do want to look at submitting it to some

directories, you may want to consider using Yahoo Directory

and Open Directory Project and some directories specific to

your topic (for example, if you have a blog, try submitting to

http://www.blog-search.info). But you will need patience,

as it can take several weeks for any submissions to be

processed unless you pay for it to be listed.

Do not try to fool the Search Engines:

Never use such methods as cloaking, link farms, keyword

stuffing, alt text spamming or any other dubious ways.

Although they may work for a short time, you not only risk

getting your site penalized, but it could actually be banned

from search engines altogether.

As search engines like their results to be accurate, they just

do not take kindly to people trying to trick them.

Avoid the use of Frames:

Although it is possible to provide workarounds that will allow

a search engine robot to crawl frame based sites, these will

still cause problems for any visitors who find that site

through a search engine.

What happens is that when someone follows a link from a

search result to a frame based site, they will end up on an

orphaned document. This will, in most cases, create

confusion for the user, as in many cases, vital parts of the

site will be lost, such as navigational links.

Browser Detection – Be Careful:

If you have to use some kind of browser detection, then

make sure that it does not break when a search engine

spider or any other unknown agent comes along.

Unfortunately, if the spiders can not get in, then your site

will not be found.

Do not waste your time with Meta Tags:

You will find that most search engines do not place a great

deal of value on the content contained within Meta Tags

today. This is because they have been used too much by

spammers. So instead, if you need to, use Meta description

elements. Although keywords will not hurt, they don’t really

help either, so generally it is not worth the effort to use

them.

Often there are some search engine sites which will use the

content of a Meta description element to describe a site in

their search result listings. So whenever possible, make

their contents unique and descriptive for every document or

page.

As stated at the beginning of this chapter, we have provided

a few basic guidelines in relation to SEO. But there is much

more that can be done in order to increase your site’s

visibility with search engines.