A Brief Guide To Search Engine Optimization: What You Must Know

Content written by-Daly Hoff

As soon as you get serious about increasing your web site's traffic, you will hear the three magic words: search engine optimization. SEO is not a fad; its benefits have a proven track record. It is not a mystery, either. With a few simple tips you can start improving your web site's search engine performance immediately.

The most important part of SEO is making sure your site has unique and fresh content. If the content on your site does not appear elsewhere on the web, the search engines will weigh it more highly than copied content. On the same token, newer content is weighted more highly than aging content.

Don't do any more SEO until you have web analytics in place. You need web analytics software so that you can clearly see which SEO methods are working and which are not worth your time. Without this software, you will not be able to optimize your SEO effects and could waste a lot of valuable time and money on methods that don't bring any results.

There are many virtues in the field of Search Engine Optimization, and patience is the biggest one. When trafficking digital marketing agency for startups , especially if you're a do-it-yourself businessperson, you have to realize that it takes time to get your business ranked up at the top. Results may take months, but you'll have to keep working in the meantime.





When you are first starting a website, avoid using sub-domains. Google treats sub-domains as their own site for purposes of assigning them PageRank. Directories from the main site, however, have the same PageRank as the parent site. This means, for instance, that mysite.com/store will have the same PageRank as mysite.com, but store.mysite.com won't.

Today most major search engines offer specialized local listings. For websites with any kind of real-word presence, registering with these local listings will improve search engine performance. Any additional features of the local listings - like maps and reviews - should be taken advantage of to increase a website's total exposure.

Make sure that the text on your website is not too large. Large text usually will take away from the look of your site and appears very elementary. Try to stick to size 12 font that is clear and very easy to read. This will help to yield happy customers.

Try to use a static URL. Dynamic URLs appear to search engines as duplicates, so your site may not place as high on their rating lists as you would prefer. Static URLs appear as multiple different sites, allowing the search engines to see that you actually have multiple pages, instead of just seeing a duplicate.

Develop a free calculator, e-book or other electronic product to give away on your website. Be sure it features your website address and business name so people can come back for related products. Post links to the free product on forums related to your field to drive more traffic to your website.

Give your customers points toward free products. Be generous with the points, so it is easy for them to visualize cashing them in after a few orders. The points could be toward products or information, available only to those redeeming points, so customers feel special because they have access to those products. Another option is to throw in a freebie of some sort, with every order.

Session IDs are difficult for the search engines so avoid them if possible. Session IDs make the engine think that the site they are looking at is completely new even though it's not. This can cause the crawlers to think that you are trying to spam the index, leading to a ban. Stay away from session IDs completely.

Keep your site focused on 1 or 2 keywords and phrases. If you try to include every related keyword you will suffer from keyword dilution. Focusing on too many will end up confusing both the search engines and your readers. Your rankings for all of the keywords will suffer as a result of this dilution.

If you are considering consolidating two or more similar pages, you should first identify the relative quantity and quality of your inbound links. This can be done by using the simple command "link:domain.com/yourpage.html"� from the Google search page. Yahoo Site Explorer offers a similar option for checking specific back links.

Do not use trademarked terms and product names in your meta tags unless you have an arrangement to do so with the owners of the trademark. Trademark owners are fiercely protective of their valuable property online. They will not appreciate it if you use their terms to drive up your website's search index ranking.

When working on the SEO of your site, try to use as much internal linking as you can, in the content of your website. You can link one block of content to the other quite easily this way. By doing this, you are making it easier for search engines and visitors to navigate your site.

Do not use too much Javascript because internet bots have a hard time understanding it. Even if your site only contains a small amount of it there is a chance that an internet bot will be confused and then ignore the whole block of code that the Javascript was included in.

Do not forget that you should design your website for your web users, first and foremost. When your web users can find your site easily, and your site is well organized in its navigation and rich in relevant content, you site will do well in the ranks. A website that is organically optimized always does better in ranks than a website that is artificially pumped up with keywords.

Make sure that you update the body text of your website regularly because many of the major search engines give preferential treatment to websites that update their content regularly. If your content never changes, there is a strong chance that search engines will lower your search engine ranking.

After you've read and memorized these great tips, you can begin to build or rework your existing website so that it's as search-engine-friendly as possible. If you're putting the right SEO tweaks on your site, the search engine spiders will have no trouble at all finding it and bringing it to the top of the heap.