Webupon

This post is aimed at a pretty specific audience…just thought I’d make that clear from “go.” This topic will be of value to website owners, creators, marketers and researchers. Our topic will be SEO of Search Engine Optimization. Let’s start at the beginning. How about a definition.

Search Engine Marketing are terms used to describe the way in which a site is built, from myriad angles, and how the way a site is put together dramatically affects were it lands in a search engine’s results pages. Search engine results pages are the pages that come up when you type in a keyword, or set of keywords, in any search engine and click the “search” button. Oh yeah, I almost forgot to define this as well…Search Engines are programs that quickly search and index all the sites networked through the internet. Examples of the biggest search engines would be Google, Yahoo, MSN and Alta Vista.

You may be thinking thus far, “well, this is all fabulous, but why is it important.” It’s very simple, really. Everyone who has a website wants it to be seen, whether it’s because you’re an organization trying to build the public’s awareness of what you do, or you’re a site that sell products and services. Without people seeing your site, your site does you very little good. So, we’re going to talk about how to get your site seen by as many people as possible! Sound good?

Alright, well the first place to start is to discuss a little bit about how search engines index pages. You’ve probably noticed while performing searches on Google or Yahoo that when you type in a particular keyword (or set of keywords) the same sites tend to appear, over and over, on the search results pages. Being on the first page of search results has very plain significance. It basically means that the search engine likes those sites, a lot. You definitely want search engines to like you, because it’s a pretty simple equation: higher page rank=more traffic=great returns for you! Unless you’re in business to lose money or turn people off, you fall into those who benefit greatly from that equation (you also probably aren’t actually a business, just an FYI ). But, there are some very specific things that every site must master to have search engines like them. Though, there is no perfect formula for search engine success, I can run through some basic things that will definitely help you get more traffic. So, here we go…

Let’s start on the foundation. The foundation of any and every site is the HTML, or Hyper Text Markup Language. HTML is the standard language that’s read by search engines and allows you to link any text or media, whatsoever, to any other text or media content, anywhere on the web. So, it’s vitally important to have your HTML soundly written. Some of the basics of good HTML are: good keyword meta-tags, appealing, user and eye-friendly page layout and excellent copy (site text), with a proper keyword density, which is usually approximately 3-5%. HTML is vital, but it’s not the whole story. Not nearly.

Secondly, your site must have attractive graphics, natural eye movement conducive flow, and text, A LOT of text. Search engines happen to love sites that are loaded with information. But, it’s important for you to organize that information well, because you can just put 50,000 words of text on your website’s homepage and expect a search engine to be kind to you. No, you must have good text content throughout all of the site, and (which is the third necessity) it must be very easy to navigate from the homepage to any other content within the site quickly and easily. Search engines love article postings, blogs and link outs to other, good and relevant content. A good site map, in this case is vital. It should be logical, intuitive and put the user at ease, at all times. You never want a user (or search engine) to be somewhere on your site and not know how to get back to the homepage or head somewhere else they want go within the site.

…Side note. As you may be beginning to see, each of the elements that go into a good SEO strategy are HUGE subjects unto themselves. But, we’re just giving a survey here…

Anyway, let’s get back to it. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, you need a good linking strategy. I’m going to give you some basics here as to what that means, and how you can achieve it. Cool? Alright, here it goes. Allow me to share what I’ve learned in 3 categories.

First of all, post as much as you can and often as you can to blogs, forums, etc. These blogs and forums will let you include your URL, which means every one you finish gains you an incoming link. This is somewhat time consuming, but very effective.

Secondly, and perhaps the most obvious, is to ask the top sites in your niche if they’d be willing to exchange links with you…which you can usually do via their “Contact Us” page. This benefits you in two distinct ways: first, you’re again gaining the incoming links, but secondly…those top sites are sites liked by Search Engines, meaning they’ve done a lot of things right, and having a link from them looks very good to a SE.

Third and Finally, Post articles on any topic about which you have knowledge. The best place to do this are ezine directories. These directories will generally accept a decent article, and there are some huge benefits here. First, you can post MULTIPLE articles to the same ezine. Secondly, each time you post an article, you get a chance to include your URL (that’s right…another incoming link). And thirdly, other ezine readers can take your article, if the like it and put it on their site…and…you guessed, your link goes with them as well. And, that about does it.

So, I very much hope you’ve found this helpful and informative and that as you learn more about each of these ingredients for good SEO you’ll find great success!