Using SEO to Improve Your Web Site
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by: Joe.Maelstrom
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Word Count: 563
Search engine optimization is the process of making your web site irresistible to search engines. Search engines sort sites by algorithms that consider a pages content, meta tags, URL, incoming links, and site history to decide how important and relevant a page is. The search engines decision determines how high up the search engine result page your web page appears when someone searches for a relevant keyword. Pages that use these principles to do well when measured by search engines algorithms are called "SEO friendly." Most browsers do not look past the first page or two of results, so it is absolutely essential to your web sites success to get into the top ten or twenty results for the keywords most important to your site.
How do you use SEO to do that? First, you select the keywords to target. Ranking well for a general term like "coffee" is everyones dream, but almost impossible to do; you will probably find that the more specific the keywords, the easier it is to rank well. "Roasted coffee" is a better keyword, but "roasted coffee beans" is even more specific, and "roasted Blue Mountain coffee beans" is superb. If competition is high enough, you may need to add even more terms to the keyword phrase, such as "roasted Blue Mountain coffee beans Boston."
Once you have a list of keywords, retool each page to target one keyword apiece. The keyword should appear in the pages title, description meta tag, and file name. (The keyword meta tag, despite the name, is irrelevant to good Seo. It was so overused that search engines generally ignore it now.) The keyword should also appear in any anchor text on links pointing to the page, and should appear in the body of the page a certain number of times. The number of times a keyword should appear in the body is a delicate and tricky part of search engine optimization; to prevent abuse, search engines change their algorithms frequently, so one year the most SEO friendly percentage of keyword appearances is 10%, then the percentage drops to 6%, then to 4%. Stay on top of the latest developments in the industry by reading good SEO forums, and keep track of the preferred keyword percentage.
When you have optimized the individual pages, take a look at your overall site design. Is the content of your site at the top of each HTML page, or do search engine spiders have to wade through unfriendly walls of code to find the body of the page? If so, is there a way to move the code so it appears after the content? Are pages linked with Javascript and Flash, or do you have plain HTML links to and from each page? Have you implemented a spider friendly sitemap?
As you can see, improving your sites SEO is not a mysterious, alchemical process. You only need to write content that your readers will enjoy reading, and add a few minor search engine optimization details intended for search engine spiders. Read search engine blogs and spend some time on reliable forums, and soon you will know everything you need to make your site SEO friendly. Related Online reputation management . Professional seo . Ppc search . Traffic to web site .
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