Posts Tagged Search Engine Optimization

When Search Engine Optimization, SEO, is done properly, your website can pay you very rich dividends. When it is not done correctly, that same website is like a palm tree in the desert. It looks wonderful, but no one knows it’s there. More pointedly, potential customers can’t find you and will be forced to spend their money elsewhere.

Here are 5 quick tips to help get your website headed in the right direction, so you can reap the rewards and increase your company’s bottom line.

1.     Keyword Research - Think of keywords in terms of what you or your customers type into a search engine to find your product or services. Your website’s content should be keyword rich for both search engines and web visitors. Google provides a free keyword research tool. It will show you the most popular keywords for your industry. You can find it at http://bit.ly/p0N6OY.
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When it comes to the topic of search engine optimization (SEO), there tends to be a lot of confusion. You here all kinds of conversations on varying opinions about how to rank higher in the organic or free listings. Some SEOs even claim to know the Google ranking algorithm inside and out or Matt Cutts personally. The topic of SEO carries a certain mystique about it, even amongst SEOs.

It is true that there are technical details to SEO, but the true magic to SEO is really not that difficult at all. SEO breaks down into 2 basic categories which are on page optimization and off page optimization. On page optimization has to do with how the search engine’s view your site and off page optimization is how other sites link to you. This is commonly known in SEO circles as backlinks.

What the search engines do not want is for you to try to trick them. They do not want you gaming their system or manipulating their search results in anyway. If you try to deceive them, they will penalize you. Their are right and wrong ways to go about optimizing your site for the search engines and in this series on SEO we are going to set the record straight when it comes to all things SEO.

If you play by the search engines rules, all will go well but if you choose to try to game them, you risk losing all that you have worked for. You must know that there is no magic bullet when it comes to SEO, but if you execute solid SEO principles, you can obtain a coveted top ranking in the search engines.

For those just starting out in the world of SEO (Search Engine Optimization), the topic can be a bit intimidating. After all, the Google algorithm is comprised of about 200 different ranking factors with some carrying more weight than others. Also, we have all heard the horror stories of:

1. Google de-indexing sites
2. Nasty Google updates that can put you out of business in a day
3. Google slaps that leave you dizzy
4. Google site wide penalties that drop your site in incremented values.
5. And lastly, the dreaded Google sandbox

Now you will notice up until now, all the talk is about Google and that is for a very good reason. Google is the 2 ton elephant, or gorilla if you prefer, in the Search Engine game. Depending on what reports that you read, Google handles anywhere to 75% to 80% of all search queries online.

Google and Microsoft’s Bing have recently joined forces. They each had glaring weaknesses. Hopefully together, they can build a better mouse trap or better yet, a better search engine.

The good thing about SEO is that if you grasp the basics, they will serve you very well no matter how the search engines tweek their algorithms. The days of spamming the esearch engines and creating low quality sites are coming to an end thankfully. To put it simply, a whole team of Google engineers is a whole lot smarter than most of us. On the brighter side of things, the search engines do tell you what is important to them and their customers, the searchers.