SEO-Use Keywords In Page Titles

It is recommended to use keywords in page titles itself. This title tag is different from a Meta tag, but it's worth considering it in relation to them. Whatever text one places in the title tag (between the portions) will appear in the title bar of browsers when they view the web page. Some browsers also append whatever you put in the title tag by adding their own name, as for example Microsoft's Internet Explorer or OPERA.

The actual text you use in the title tag is one of the most important factors in how a search engine may decide to rank your web page. In addition, all major web crawlers will use the text of your title tag as the text they use for the title of your page in your listings.

If you have designed your website as a series of websites or linked pages and not just a single Home Page, you must bear in mind that each page of your website must be search engine optimized. The title of each page i.e. the keywords you use on that page and the phrases you use in the content will draw traffic to your site.

The unique combination of these words and phrases and content will draw customers using different search engine terms and techniques, so be sure you capture all the keywords and phrases you need for each product, service or information page.

The most common mistake made by small business owners when they first design their website is to place their business name or firm name in every title of every page. Actually most of your prospective customers do not bother to know the name of your firm until after they have looked at your site and decided it is worth book marking.

So, while you want your business name in the title of the home page, it is probably a waste of valuable keywords and space to put it in the title line of every page on your site. Why not consider putting keywords in the title so that your page will display closer to the top of the search engine listing.

Dedicating first three positions for keywords in title avoiding the stop words like ‘and’, ‘at’ and the like is crucial in search engine optimization.

SEO-Tools to monitor your website

You can’t just put your website on the net with right keywords and all the right touches and expect your traffic and ranking will remain constant. As the web is an ever changing landscape, you have to keep track of your own web results like what is happening with the competition and also the best and highest ranked sites. There are many useful tools to help you find out what exactly is happening.

1. A tool which you can use to test your own website links or other websites for broken links:
http://home.snafu.de/tilman/xenulink.html

2. With this tool you can check search engines for the number of back links to your URL i.e. other web pages linking to your site:
http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/backlinks/

3. It sometimes becomes important to know where the servers of your hosting company are physically located. Because, some search engines like Google have the ability to filter search results based on their physical location called geotargeting. This could be used to determine why your site is showing in only a certain country. This link can also be used to research the country location of a particular competitor’s website:
http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/website-country/

4. In order to track the location of the visitor or a customer to your website:
http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/geovisitors/

5. In order to check the Yahoo! web ranking of your’s or your competitor’s website use :
http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/webrank/

6. Here is a link to check the web ranking of a website using a Mac or Apple computer:
http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/pagerank-mac/

7. You need a Google AdSense account for using this. This link provides you with charts and reports which will help you analyze traffic, clicks, and results from your AdSense advertising
http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/adsense-charts/

8. If you have an AdSense account, you can analyze your website address or another website address to see what Google ads will be displayed when the customer selects certain website names or keywords:
http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/adsense-sandbox/

9. This link will take you to a cooperative advertising network where you can join to display and
share your ads with other website owners:
http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/ad-network/

10. You can add the Search Functionality on your website which uses Google. This works only if your site is listed in the Google Index.
http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/search/

11. Here are some links to free website counters which you can use on your website to track your traffic and hits:
http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/counter/
http://www.amazingcounters.com/?ref=gad033
http://www.cyber-counter.com/signup.php
http://www.statcounter.com/free_hit_counter.html
http://www.free-counters.net/

SEO-Tips to Increase Ranking and Website Traffic

It is worth cataloguing the basic principles to be enforced to increase website traffic and search engine rankings.

• Create a site with valuable content, products or services.
• Place primary and secondary keywords within the first 25 words in your page content and spread them evenly throughout the document.
• Research and use the right keywords/phrases to attract your target customers.
• Use your keywords in the right fields and references within your web page. Like Title, META tags, Headers, etc.
• Keep your site design simple so that your customers can navigate easily between web pages, find what they want and buy products and services.
• Submit your web pages i.e. every web page and not just the home page, to the most popular search engines and directory services. Hire someone to do so, if required. Be sure this is a manual submission. Do not engage an automated submission service.
• Keep track of changes in search engine algorithms and processes and accordingly modify your web pages so your search engine ranking remains high. Use online tools and utilities to keep track of how your website is doing.
• Monitor your competitors and the top ranked websites to see what they are doing right in the way of design, navigation, content, keywords, etc.
• Use reports and logs from your web hosting company to see where your traffic is coming from. Analyze your visitor location and their incoming sources whether search engines or links from other sites and the keywords they used to find you.
• Make your customer visit easy and give them plenty of ways to remember you in the form of newsletters, free reports, reduction coupons etc.
• Demonstrate your industry and product or service expertise by writing and submitting articles for your website or for article banks so you are perceived as an expert in your field.
• When selling products online, use simple payment and shipment methods to make your customer’s experience fast and easy.
• When not sure, hire professionals. Though it may seem costly, but it is a lot less expensive than spending your money on a website which no one visits.
• Don’t look at your website as a static brochure. Treat it as a dynamic, ever-changing sales tool and location, just like your real store to which your customers with the same seriousness.

SEO-Tips to Get Repeat Web Traffic

1. Update the pages on your website frequently. Stagnant sites are dropped by some search engines. You can even put a date counter on the page to show when it was last updated.

2. Offer additional value on your website. For affiliates and partners you can place links to their sites and products and ask them to do the same for you. You can also advertise their books or videos, if these products relate to your industry and are not in competition with your own product.

3. You can allow customers to ‘opt in’ to get discounts and special offers. Place a link on your site to invite customers to ‘opt in’ to get a monthly newsletter or valuable coupons.

4. Add a link to your primary page with a script ‘Book Mark or Add this site to your Favorites’.

5. Add a link ‘Recommend this site to a Friend’ so that the visitor can email your website link, with a prewritten title, “Thought you might be interested in this”, just by clicking on it.

6. Brand your website so that visitors always know they are on your site. Use consistent colors, logos and slogans and always provide a ‘Contact Us’ link on each page.

7. Create a ‘Our Policies’ page that clearly defines your philosophy and principles in dealing with your customers. Also post your privacy policy as well so that clients know they are secure when they visit your site.

8. Create a FAQ page which addresses most of the doubts and clarifications about your product or your company that are likely to be asked. This helps to resolve most of the customers doubts in their first visit to your site.

8. Ensure that each page on your website has appropriate titles and keywords so that your customer can find their way back to your site if they lose the book mark.

9. Never spam a client, who has opted for newsletters, with unsolicited emails. Later if they decide they want to ‘opt out’ of the mailings, be sure you honor their request and take them off the mailing list. They may still come back if they like your products. But they will certainly not come back if you continue to flood their email box with mails they no longer wish to receive.

SEO-The Importance of Search Engines

It is the search engines that finally bring your website to the notice of the prospective customers. When a topic is typed for search, nearly instantly, the search engine will sift through the millions of pages it has indexed about and present you with ones that match your topic. The searched matches are also ranked, so that the most relevant ones come first.

Remember that a prospective customer will probably only look at the first 2-3 listings in the search results. So it does matter where your website appears in the search engine ranking.

Further, they all use one of the top 6-7 search engines and these search engines attract more visitors to websites than anything else. So finally it all depends on which search engines the customers use and how they rank your site.

It is the Keywords that play an important role than any expensive online or offline advertising of your website.

It is found by surveys that a when customers want to find a website for information or to buy a product or service, they find their site in one of the following ways:

• The first option is they find their site through a search engine.
• Secondly they find their site by clicking on a link from another website or page that relates to the topic in which they are interested.
• Occasionally, they find a site by hearing about it from a friend or reading in an article.

Thus it’s obvious the the most popular way to find a site, by search engine, represents more than 90% of online users. In other words, only 10% of the people looking for a website will use methods other than search engines.

All search engines employ a ranking algorithm and one of the main rules in a ranking algorithm is to check the location and frequency of keywords on a web page. Don’t forget that algorithms also give weightage to link population (number of web pages linking to your site). When performed by a qualified, experienced search engine optimization consultant, your site for high search engine rankings really does work, unless you have a lot of money and can afford to pay the expert. With better knowledge of search engines and how they work, you can also do it on your own.

SEO-Must Have Features Your Web Site

Just don’t focus on the home page, keywords and titles.

The first step to sales when customers visit your site to see the products they were looking for. Of course, search engine optimization and better rankings can’t keep your customer on your site or make them buy. The customer having visited your site, now ensure that he gets interested in your products or services and stays around. Motivate him to buy the product by providing clear and unambiguous information. Thus if you happen to sell more than one product or service, provide all necessary information about this, may be by keeping the information at a different page. By providing suitable and easily visible links, the customer can navigate to these pages and get the details.

Understanding Your Target Customer

If you design a website you think will attract clients, but you don’t really know who your customers are and what they want to buy, it is unlikely you make much money. Website business is an extension or replacement for a standard storefront. You can send email to your existing clients and ask them to complete a survey or even while they are browsing on your website. Ask them about their choices. Why do they like your products? Do you discount prices or offer coupons? Are your prices consistently lower than others? Is your shipping price cheaper? Do you respond faster to client questions? Are your product descriptions better? Your return policies and guarantees better than your competitor’s? To know your customer you can check credit card records or ask your customer to complete a simple contact form with name, address, age, gender, etc. when they purchase a product.

Does your website give enough contact information?

When you sell from a website, your customer can buy your products 24 hrs a day and also your customers may be from other states that are thousands of miles away. Always provide contact information, preferably on every page of your website, complete with mailing address, telephone number and an email address that reaches you. People may need to contact you about sales, general information or technical problems on your site. Also have your email forwarded to another email address if you do not check your website mailbox often. When customer wants to buy online provide enough options like credit card, PayPal or other online payment service.

SEO-Keyword Density

Keyword density is an indicator of the number of times the selected keyword appears in the web page. But mind you, keywords shouldn’t be over used, but should be just sufficient enough to appear at important places.

If you repeat your keywords with every other word on every line, then your site will probably be rejected as an artificial site or spam site.

Keyword density is always expressed as a percentage of the total word content on a given web page.

Suppose you have 100 words on your webpage (not including HMTL code used for writing the web page), and you use a certain keyword for five times in the content. The keyword density on that page is got by simply dividing the total number of keywords, by the total number of words that appear on your web page. So here it is 5 divided by 100 = .05. Because keyword density is a percentage of the total word count on the page, multiply the above by 100, that is 0.05 x 100 = 5%

The accepted standard for a keyword density is between 3% and 5%, to get recognized by the search engines and you should never exceed it.

Remember, that this rule applies to every page on your site. It also applies to not just to one keyword but also a set of keywords that relates to a different product or service. The keyword density should always be between 3% and 5%.

Simple steps to check the density:

• Copy and paste the content from an individual web page into a word-processing software program like Word or Word Perfect.
• Go to the ‘Edit’ menu and click ‘Select All’. Now go to the ‘Tools’ menu and select ‘Word Count’. Write down the total number of words in the page.
• Now select the ‘Find’ function on the ‘Edit’ menu. Go to the ‘Replace’ tab and type in the keyword you want to find. ‘Replace’ that word with the same word, so you don’t change the text.
• When you complete the replace function, the system will provide a count of the words you replaced. That gives the number of times you have used the keyword in that page.
• Using the total word count for the page and the total number of keywords you can now calculate the keyword density.

How Do Search Engines Work - Web Crawlers

It is the search engines that finally bring your website to the notice of the prospective customers. Hence it is better to know how these search engines actually work and how they present information to the customer initiating a search.

There are basically two types of search engines. The first is by robots called crawlers or spiders.

Search Engines use spiders to index websites. When you submit your website pages to a search engine by completing their required submission page, the search engine spider will index your entire site. A ‘spider’ is an automated program that is run by the search engine system. Spider visits a web site, read the content on the actual site, the site's Meta tags and also follow the links that the site connects. The spider then returns all that information back to a central depository, where the data is indexed. It will visit each link you have on your website and index those sites as well. Some spiders will only index a certain number of pages on your site, so don’t create a site with 500 pages!

The spider will periodically return to the sites to check for any information that has changed. The frequency with which this happens is determined by the moderators of the search engine.

A spider is almost like a book where it contains the table of contents, the actual content and the links and references for all the websites it finds during its search, and it may index up to a million pages a day.

Example: Excite, Lycos, AltaVista and Google.

When you ask a search engine to locate information, it is actually searching through the index which it has created and not actually searching the Web. Different search engines produce different rankings because not every search engine uses the same algorithm to search through the indices.

One of the things that a search engine algorithm scans for is the frequency and location of keywords on a web page, but it can also detect artificial keyword stuffing or spamdexing. Then the algorithms analyze the way that pages link to other pages in the Web. By checking how pages link to each other, an engine can both determine what a page is about, if the keywords of the linked pages are similar to the keywords on the original page.

Search Engine Optimization Tips - Part Two

Welcome to the second part of our series of articles on search engine optimization. In the previous article we discussed keywords, domain names, content and keyword density issues. This article moves past that to the nitty gritty of improving your web pages and website for better search engine rankings.


Page Title
It's truly amazing how many people don't realize how critical the TITLE tag can be to the success or failure of your website. Your TITLE tag needs to have your most important keyword for that page included in it. This is for the benefit of the search engines.

From a visitors point of view it also needs to entice them to click on your title tag when they see it in the search engine results. If your page is about PDA Accessories don't just use that phrase in the TITLE tag.

Dress it up a bit. For example "PDA Accessories For The Busy Geek" or "Need Accessories for Your PDA? Come right in!" Those examples took me 10 seconds to come up with. You can do far better with a little more time and effort.


META Keyword Tag
Anybody still using the Meta Keyword tag as their sole search engine optimization method please leave the room. Go on get out and don't come back.

The Meta Keyword tag is all but dead to the search engines. When building your pages it's still worth including but simply put in the top 3 or 4 keywords that are relevant to your business and leave it at that. Do not spend hours coming up with hundreds of keywords to stuff into the Meta Keyword tag. It's a total waste of time and anybody who tells you different has no idea what they're talking about.


META Description Tag
This still has some limited value for your SEO work. When Google or other search engines display search results they display the contents of the TITLE tag and your Meta Description tag (if present) or a random selection of text from the page. Your Meta Description tag will take priority if present.

The Meta Description tag is still worth using. Your most important keyword should be in there and again you need to work this keyword into an eye catching phrase or sentence. Don't just copy and paste the main keyword in there.

If the Meta Description tag is used well, in conjunction with the TITLE tag, then it can make your displayed search result more inviting to the potential visitor. Again don't spend more than a few minutes on your Meta Description tag but do make sure that you include it on each page. One final note - make the Meta Description for each page different; don't just recycle the same one over and over.


RSS
Stands for Really Simple Syndication and is probably something you've heard a lot about over the last few months. RSS allows you to display the news items and/or content from other sites on your website as part of a "news feed". This adds a huge amount of value to your site from a vistors point of view - they don't need to leave your site to get the latest news on a given topic. The other benefit is that search engines love seeing fresh content on websites.

At the moment there's a huge upsurge in the use of RSS for search engine optimization. The question is does it work? Yes it does. Using RSS can most definitely encourage the search engines to come back to visit your site more often. How does it work? Well again that goes beyond the scope of this article so please refer to our site for more information.


Blogs
Also called Web Logs are basically online diaries. For a long time these were used solely by... well.... geeks to record their thoughts and as a way of sharing information on Star Trek. Seriously though initially blogs were never seen as anything more than a curiousity.

Recently with the increased visibility of RSS blogs have also seen their profile rise. Why? Well because many RSS feeds feature blog content. Which means what exactly? It means your blog could be included on and linked to from thousands of websites all over the world. Are you seeing the possiblities? There are some other nuances to consider but to mention them here would give the game away completely and certain ebook authors would put a price on my head for giving away their secrets.

Building a Content-Rich Site

In order for your efforts to optimize your search engine results to work, you will need to make your entire site a billboard of sorts. Everywhere you can place some keyword to effectively build your search engine rankings, you must. This is the best way for you to get your business noticed on the Internet. The more people who search for what you sell, the more customers you will likely have.



But it's not just keywords that do the job. If it was, you could have a site where all you did was list all the keywords you could think, and you would possibly have thousands of visitors per week. But what are they going to do when they get to your site? If it's just keywords in a list, they'll go away. That's why it's so important that you make not just a noticeable site, but also it must be a content-rich site.



The first thing to remember about the Internet is that it is all about information. No matter what else people do, they are on the Internet for information about one thing or another. Therefore, it is up to you as the Internet Marketer and business owner to develop content rich in information that will not only attract people to your site, but keep them there long enough for you to make the sale. In the case of Internet business where information is the only thing your site offers, you really need to keep up on this. If the content is no good, they will not return.


The best ways to make yours a content-rich site involve a lot of writing. You need to write articles that will inform and entertain readers. These articles should be related to your site's market. The more small articles you write about various different aspects of the subject matter of your site, the better. Another thing that makes for a content-rich site is news. Information relating to some new event in the market will dramatically enhance the content of your site. Even interviews, reports, and product descriptions can enhance content.


The final thing to remember is that your content should be revised frequently. The same old information will wear out, so you have to be on top of it, with something new all the time.



Also, remember that the keywords are how you really get noticed. The more content you have, the more room you've got for the important keywords. When you add content, be sure to have as many keywords as you can incorporated into that content. It's all about getting noticed and getting results, and keywords and content are how you get there

Search Engine Optimization - Advice And Tactic

Unique content is King. Search engines love new, unique and updated content. If you produce new content at a rate of just one reasonably sized page per day and tied in with the other advice throughout the site, I can almost guarantee you will get good listings. Remember though, write for the visitors but cater for the search engines. If your field of expertise fits into a niche in the market, all the better for you but you must get unique content all you will fall behind.

Page Structure. Search engine bots can sometimes get confused with poorly coded html, javascript and other web languages. If the bot has to wait too long or cannot decipher the web language then it will just abandon your site and move on to the next, even if it manages to get through the code it usually leads to poor search engine indexing of your website. You should also keep to widely used file extensions like .htm, .html, .php, .asp for your pages.

Loading Speed. The loading speed of your website should be kept to a minimum, if it takes long than 5 seconds on 256kb+ connections then you lose visitors - both real and search engine bots. There are a variety of reasons why pages can load slowly, it may either be your web server, poorly coded server side code like php or client side code like javascript which can slow or even stop your page from loading.

Visitor Navigation. This is more an aesthetic feature of your website focused at real visitors but you need to have some sort of standard navigation that is the same throughout your whole site. People can be put off and leave your website if they find it difficult to browse easily, search engine bots may also miss links if they can only be found deep within your site. Try to make as many internal links as possible available on each page.

Site Hierarchy. Site hierachy can be great for adding keyword density to your web site. An example of site hierachy working effectively would be this page, seo-advice.php. The full link contains SEO twice - www.seoassistance.com/seo-advice.php which is very beneficial in the way search engines determine your sites relevance to a particular subject. Use your domain, folders and file names to your advantage.

Avoid Blackhat SEO. Blackhat SEO is a vast topic that commands little respect from real webmasters as it means using underhand methods to gain search engine rankings, although the site is usually banned quickly. Blackhat SEO includes using link farms, search engine spamming, hidden or disguised text, fake meta tag data, using duplicate content and using doorway pages. I would recommend you stay away from tactics like this as you will end up losing out in the long run.

Targeted Linkswaps. Link swaps are great but you must make them work for you. It does little good for you when your going for top search engine positions when your link swaps are untargeted. You should choose some specific keywords for both the link text and the link title text then make sure before you link swap that the other webmaster adds those specific keywords with the link.

Going After the Competition With SEO

No matter what business you're in, there is one common factor all businesses share:


they have competition. Sure, the exception is the monopoly, but you would be hardpressed

to find any form of true monopoly on the Internet. More likely you will find

that there are at least a few, and perhaps as many as hundreds, of competitors all

scrambling to get to the top. If you have an Internet business, you're one of them.

And for you to be successful, you must know how to successfully compete. It's a

game with very real consequences, and winning is the ultimate goal.

Search Engine Optimization is one way you can effectively compete with others in

your market. But the only way you can even start to compete with them is to know

them. You have to know your competition as well or better than you know your own

company. And, fortunately, there are ways you can do this.


First of all, to know your competition you will need to visit them. Search for all the

sites you can find that may be doing the same thing you are, and then visit each

one. Pay careful attention to the results at the top of the search engine list. These

are the highest ranking sites, and you will want to find out what got them there.

When you go to each site, take notes on layout, content, obvious keywords, and any

other things about the site that may make it more visible than yours in searches.

Once you've gotten through all of the sites and reviewed the results of your study,

look for ways to enhance the quality of your own site. Consider different types of

content, better or more keywords, and any other additions that will make your site

as good or better than the competition. Remember, too, that this is not something

you can do one time and leave it alone. You will want to do this as frequently as

possible to keep on top of the game.


Besides looking to others for ideas, also think of ways you can enhance your site that

others have not tried. Innovation is what will set you above the rest. It doesn't hurt

to add an innovation to your site to test the market's response. Just be sure to study

it for effectiveness before you use it. You want to be reasonable sure that it will work

before you put the idea to the test.


A final note: constantly review your results. Determine what worked and what did

not work. Keep an eye on your competition for what they are doing. This is an

ongoing process without end. It is the best way to go after the competition online,

and it will be the key to your success or failure.

Steps for Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is a rather involved process that you must follow through to ensure that your Internet business is getting results and revenues. Without SEO, you may as well close your virtual doors and go home. This is the most vital means by which you can direct traffic to your site, and so it is critically important that you understand at least the basic steps in the process to optimize your ranking with the search engines. Here are basic steps you will need to follow.


1. Know your competition. You will need to find out everything you can about who else is in the same market as you. Perform searches to collect information. Repeat this process often, using up-to-date search terms. New businesses open all the time. You don't want to miss a new competitor.


2. Gather a list of keywords. You can go online and obtain massive lists of keywords that are used all the time. Put together the list according to the words that will have the most impact on your site.


3. Find ways to combine the keywords you've selected. The more combinations you can incorporate into the content of your site, the better will be your results.


4. Modify the content of your website. Change headlines, labels, and content throughout your site to enhance the capabilities of your site to draw in highly directed traffic.



5. Refine your keyword list often. Knowing that the Internet is ever-evolving, you must stay on top of what words will have the most impact. Make changes asnecessary to keep on the top of the ranking lists.



6. Make sure that your URL is added to the top search engines. The last thing you want to do is be missed because one of the majors didn't know you were there. Keep on top of this. Know which search engines are most popular.


7. Keep track of your results. Just like grades in school, the rankings you achieve will tell you how well you're doing and how much you need to improve for that A+. Analyze whatever information you can collect and constantly work to improve your results.


8. Repeat the process. Over and over again, you will need to redo all of these steps, keeping in mind that the competition is doing the same. Always look for innovative ways to improve your results. Sticking with the same old stuff all the time is not how giants are made.


This is a relatively basic illustration of the process you need to follow to optimize your search engine results. There are certainly more ways to fine-tune your site's rankings. However, for the purpose of getting started, this list should serve to put you on the path toward higher search engine rankings.

Why is Search Engine Optimization Important?

When you start any business, you have a lot to worry about. But above all else, you


have to concern yourself with visibility. If the customer doesn't know you're there,

how can you expect him or her to ever visit your business? In the physical world,

stores and other businesses have many ways of getting noticed. Radio, television,

newspaper, and mailing ads are all ways that they get noticed.


But what about the person traveling through the town where you do business?

Chances are that the traveler will not have received any of these advertisements.

What else can you do to bring in these potential customers? And the answer is your

signs. The signs you place are a clear beacon to the customer of where you are. You

see it all the time, driving down the highway. And the bigger the sign, the better it

catches your attention.


It really works quite the same way with search engine optimization. You need to be

noticed. The best way for you to get noticed is to have, figuratively speaking, the

biggest and the best sign. That's how traffic on the Internet, zipping by, notices that

you even exist. It's the words you use and how you use them to describe your site

and its content that get you the customers.


This is where it becomes so important to use search engine optimization to your

advantage. If you can come up with that all-important list of best keywords to

describe your site, and if you can incorporate those words into the content of your

site, then you stand far greater chances of directing that Internet traffic to you

instead of your competitors. Remember, if you don't get the customers, they will.

It doesn't cost you anything to show up on a search engine's results. But it can cost

you everything if you don't show up on a search. The amount of revenue you have

planned for your company is going to depend on how well you can utilize this feature

of Internet Marketing. If you can't get the customers to notice you, you may as well

throw those revenue goals in the fireplace.


The traffic on the Internet is much pickier than the traffic on the roadways. It is

focused traffic, looking for a specific want or need. They will search, find, and buy.

Who they buy from is of little importance to them, but to you, it is everything. So

when you think about why it's important to effectively use search engine

optimization, just remember that everyone on the Internet is really a traveler

through your town, and if you don't have that sign they'll notice, they're going to

pass you by.

What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Have you ever been in a crowd of people all waiting for some famous movie-star or


musician to arrive at an event? What did you notice about the behavior of the fans?

Or how about the many times you've seen a crowd of reporters circling around some

newsworthy figure? What did you notice?


Chances are that in either of those scenarios you saw a massive crowd of people all

fighting to get to the front where they could be seen and heard. There is a lot of

pushing and shoving and yelling and all of that. It's chaos, and many people would

just as soon avoid such a situation. It's all about competition. The few who get to the

front of the crowd are the only ones who stand a chance to have their voices heard.

It is these few who will have the opportunity to reap the rewards of their effort.


So now you're asking yourself: "Just what does all this have to do with Search

Engine Optimization (SEO)?" And the answer is a simple one: competition. That's

what it's all about. Competition in any field is the struggle not only for survival but

also for dominance. Very few people want to 'just get by'. Most are willing to do what

it takes not only to succeed, but to be the best at what they do. It's this very idea

that brought about the concept of SEO in the first place.


Search Engine Optimization is really a technical science more than anything. It is the

process of collecting information on your market and your competitors in an effort to

fine tune your site's headlines and content so that you achieve more hits on every

search a web-surfer conducts. Each time they search, they will use keywords that

help them find what they are looking for. It is up to you to make sure that your site

has the best, and the most, of these popular search terms. With them, you jump to

the front of the line and get the results. Without these words, you fall into the

background and are never noticed.


The way it works, basically, is by search engines tapping all the sites with the most

accurate and abundant search terms relevant to a search. When you use the right

terms to describe the content of your site, you achieve a higher ranking with that

search engine. The search engines update these rankings weekly, giving you many

opportunities to score a higher rank. The trouble is, whereas you have a chance to

move up, so does your competition. And the competition will always be looking for a

way to beat you. So be sure to keep on top of the game. Modify your site as needed

so you can keep your rankings higher and stay ahead of the competition