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What Is Search
Engine?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is
the process of “naturally” driving
traffic to your site and is
generally seen as the more cost
efficient way. By making a website
more search engine friendly, a site
will rank higher on the search
engine result page. To optimize your
site for the search engines is to
try to get it listed in the top
rankings when any particular keyword
phrase related to your industry is
typed into the query box. SEO is
particularly important for e-commerce
sites. Site improvements include
changing or adding content,
improving internal and external
links, and formatting meta tags. The
most important thing to remember is
that content is king. Without enough
content containing the right
keywords, you have very little
chance of ranking well. Used
correctly, SEO can lead to a very
profitable search marketing campaign.
You can perform search engine
optimization on your own site if you
have the time and knowledge to do so,
or you can invest in professional
site optimization work. Here is a
run-down of the essential elements
needed to optimize your site:
1. Do
Keyword Research. Think
you know what people are searching
for in the major search engines?
Think again. The only real way to
tell is to ask the search engines
themselves. Google and Yahoo make up
the lion's share of search engine
traffic. Here are some tools to help
show you what consumers are
searching for on a regular basis:
•Google AdWords Keyword Suggestion
Tool
•Yahoo! Search Marketing Keyword
Selector Tool Choose only keywords
related to your site. Check all
synonyms and alternative phrasing
such as plurals and singulars.
2. Adjust
your title, meta keyword tag and
meta description tags.
These are bits of code that do not
appear on the page for visitors to
view, but instead are placed into
the code for search engines to pick
up. You will want to place your
chosen keywords throughout these
areas of your site, but be careful
not to overdo it.
3. Create
keyword-rich page content.
Using the keywords that were
researched, write paragraphs of
information for your on-page content.
You will want to describe your
business and what you offer for your
homepage text. Give a quick summary
of brands and features in your
category description, and provide
detailed information in your product
descriptions. These are all primary
opportunities for optimized text.
Make sure you take advantage of them.
Here are some quick guidelines:
•Homepage: Write at least 200 words
of text, including your main keyword
phrases, about three times.
•Category description: Your
description should be 1 to 2
sentences. The description should
include the keyword phrase one time.
Write a natural sounding sentence
describing that product category.
•Product description: In your long
description, add as much related
content as possible: 200-400 words
will help fill this page out. Try a
H1 tag or H2 tag, using your keyword
phrases. Include any phrases you are
targeting one time only. Include
variations, plurals, possessives or
synonyms. Occasionally bold and
italicize a few of the keyword
phrases within your text. You should
also consider creating some custom
pages of information about your
products using your keyword phrases.
Be sure to never copy information
from another site or web page.
Duplicate content can result in
penalties from the search engines.
4. Properly
link back to your homepage.
Whenever you link back to your
homepage, always use your full
domain name with the "http"
(http://www.domainname.com) instead
of /index.asp. This will help
increase your site's link popularity.
5. Work on
link popularity. Having
strong link popularity means that
your site has a lot of other
websites linking to it and that the
sites that link to yours are also
doing well in the search engines.
You'll want to work on both quality
and quantity when it comes to
getting other sites to link to you.
The more sites that are linking to
you and the better those sites are
doing with the search engines, the
more search engine visibility your
site will have.
•Submit your site to search engines
and directories
•Trade links with related sites
•Read more about link popularity and
how to increase it
These five basic steps will give you
an idea of what it will take to
start getting your site listed in
the major search engines. Of course,
search engine optimization is
complex, and the methods for
achieving top rankings change often.
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