Search Engine Optimization for Total Beginners
Search engines are the gateway for any web business, Google being the most prominent out there. It’s important to get the highest page listing possible as few people searching for what they’re looking for, will go several pages deep into their search listings. There are companies out there making tempting promises to get you on the first page often times at exorbitant prices.
The best way is to try to get free organic website traffic, meaning when someone searches for a term or phrase in the search engine, those pages that come up are “organic” type listings. Being on page one is highly desirable as few people search beyond the first one or two pages listed. This is different than the paid ads you see on the right hand side of the page, other wise known as “pay per click” ads. Trying to get listed at a high page rank is known as search engine optimization or SEO and boils down to:
1. Content is King. You need real content on your web site; this is content that has real meaning to real people, not just keyword stuffing. Search engines send out programs called web crawlers or web spiders that index web sites. The number one thing those web crawlers are looking for is content. They determine if a web site has content by tracking keyword phrases. This is why search engine optimization usually starts by picking keywords and writing content around them; a lot of web site marketing gurus advocate keyword stuffing well past the point of sanity and effectiveness. Anything more than about 2-4% of the words in an article and the web sites will filter it out it’s too obviously “gaming the system”.
2. Link backs provide validation. The more links leading back to your site, particularly links that are in contextually appropriate content, the higher your page ranking will be. Ways to get these link backs range from link exchanges with other companies in related marketing niches, to having articles about the topic or niche you’re selling to with links back to your site, to social networking sites and Squidoo Lenses.
3. Updated, and expanding content. You can’t just put a page up and expect to keep the same page ranks. Your site needs to have new material, this is important not just for web spiders, but for human visitors as well. If they can expect to see something new and interesting at least three times a week, they’ll keep coming back and it takes an average of seven visits before someone decides to either post in a forum or buy something in a shopping cart.
4. Web layouts that make sense. Your web site should have clean navigational links, your front page should have links to everything else on your site.
5. Text rules everything in web content. Search engine spiders ignore Javascript, they ignore graphics, and until very recently, they couldn’t read text in Flash animations. If the search engine spiders can’t read it, it doesn’t get used to help your page rankings.
The real secret of long term success in search optimization is to make your web site as usable as you can. Make it easy to navigate for real people, who want to read about your niche, and with content that makes them come back.
