Copyright
© Jack HumphreyIf
you are confused about terms like "search engine
optimization" or having a "search engine friendly" site, then listen
up! I am here to help.
Depending on how long you have had, or considered
having, a
website online, you have heard terms thrown around like the above or
even worse, acronyms! SEO comes to mind.
Really there is not that much to fear even if you
have no idea
right now what is really meant by having a search engine friendly site.
Here is what search engines like to have in their
results when people type in keywords:
- A site with lots of content.
- A
site with UNIQUE content (Original - meaning you wrote it or you paid
someone to write it for you.)
- Sites
that are well organized link-wise (meaning simple navigation from the
main page of your site to every other page of your site.)
- Sites
that have links pointing to them from other popular,
relevant sites. (sites that are similar in content to yours but that
are not in direct competition with yours in content)
- Sites
that change regularly (not static but always growing with new content
on a regular basis)
- Sites
they can read. (search engine robots cannot read javascript for
instance and therefore you get no credit for whatever content is in
that application on your site)
- Tightly
themed
sites. It is easier for an engine to rank
your site properly (where you want it to be) if you are not all over
the map in content.
Exception: Portal sites or directories.
But this is an item for another article all together
What About The Complicated Stuff?
There really isn't anything complicated about what
the search
engines want. But if you have stumbled into a search engine forum you
were likely blown away with comments and tips that were completely over
your head.
There is a difference between basic, standard
optimization and
the stuff they talk about in those forums. While visting SEO forums is
good to keep up on new things as you go along, many people get confused
and the forums are the breeding grounds for confusion when you are a
beginner.
Try to learn advanced SEO from noted experts in the
field
rather than taking anything in chats or forums as gospel. A lot more
people THINK they know what they are doing than actually do.
Remember that anything someone is willing to give
away for free
which, if it works, could be worth tens of thousands of dollars in high
rankings resulting in high sales, is probably something that is old hat
and not effective anymore.
But for now, you have a lot of work to do on the
basics. The
advanced stuff can come later. Relative to the advanced SEO, getting
the basics right is the most powerful move you can make because you are
going from zero to moving up in rankings by, many times, tens of
thousands of spaces in a relatively short time.
Advanced SEO focuses on moving your site from high
rankings slightly higher rankings.
Keywords
Your content is the most important thing about a
website. It
must be friendly to the search engines meaning no special java script
or other stuff. Just good old fashioned HTML. You will do fine with
PHP, SHTML, and other things, but for the purpose of this article, HTML
is the way most people construct their sites.
You should use a good density of your main keyword
phrase for
each page of your site within the content. If you are going after a
high ranking for the phrase "dog leashes" you need to have that phrase
in the title of the page and throughout the content.
Programs that are great for analyzing your site and
giving
feedback on how to improve your rankings don't come any more highly
recommended that Internet Business Promoter from Axandra.
More Info: http://www.Axandra.com/go.to/jdh358
Nice thing about the software above is that it
teaches you
search engine optimization while it works on your site. So having it is
like having a course on optimization while your site is altered for the
best placement in the search engines at the same time.
The main recommendation I have for people starting
to deal with
optimizing their sites for the engines is to take things one at a time
and get the basics down before you start messing with advanced
strategies.
And when you start down that road, information you
pay for is
usually more accurate and more valuable than hanging around in forums.
High rankings are worth a LOT of money and people don't work hard to
become experts just to give that information away.
Good luck and get to work!
Copyright 2004 Jack Humphrey About The Author
Jack Humphrey is the CEO of http://WebFoxMedia.com,
an online marketing consulting firm that focuses on publicity, traffic
generation and website development for small to large companies.
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