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What is Search Engine Optimization

Guest post by: Karen Scharf

Article Overview: Can you believe there are over a trillion pages on the web today? It’s no wonder that we’re totally dependent on search engines to find what we need. With that many pages, it would be impossible to surf the web without using a search engine.

What is Search Engine Optimization

Can you believe there are over a trillion pages on the web today? It's no wonder that we're totally dependent on search engines to find what we need. With that many pages, it would be impossible to surf the web without using a search engine.

Basically, a search engine is a program or tool that helps internet users search for and find the information on the internet. When using search engines like Google or Yahoo you can focus on a specific word, or more often, a word phrase, that you are interested in, and skip numerous pages that have no relevance for your search. Search engine developers understand that helping people find what they need as fast as possible is their primary concern, and they are constantly putting into place new technology and software solutions to ensure that you don't get junk results when you search.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is an essential technique for any website owner that helps drive website traffic. Search engine optimizing a website means improving the site according to search engine rules and technology to drive as much traffic as possible. Because the rules and technology are always changing, SEO must be an ongoing task for any webmaster.

One of the best ways to get started with search engine optimization for your own website is to start using keyword rich anchor text within your own web pages, blogs and article directories. Anchor text is the word or phrase that is used to hyperlink back to your website. While we most often see "YourSitecom " as anchor text, any words or phrase can be used.

In fact, for search engine optimization purposes, your anchor text will be much more effective if, rather than using "Yoursitecom", you used your keyword or keyword phrase. Basically, Google likes it when anchor text is relevant to the information found on your website.

Obviously, having a good handle on your keywords is the first necessary step to knowing what to use for your anchor text. There are many tools that will help you track down good keywords with low competition. One simple and free tool to begin your keyword research is Google Adwords keyword tool. There are also tools that will show you how well your page is currently optimized for the keyword you've selected.

Since many keywords and phrase are extremely competitive, you'll need to balance the popularity of a certain keyword with the competition for that word. If you have difficulty finding a keyword with limited competition, try to modify a keyword slightly by making it plural or past tense or adding adjectives. Google does consider "dog" and "dogs" as two separate keywords. You might be pleasantly surprised to find that a slightly different version of your keyword phrase has much less competition than your original keyword.

Even if you're not a technical guru, there are several affordable SEO steps you can make to take advantage of anchor text to drive traffic:

1. be sure to use the exact wording of your keyword rich anchor text on your landing page;

2. use your keyword phrases as the anchor text linking to internal pages within your own site;

3. use your keyword phrase to link back to your website from any other sites or link directories;

4. because web surfers click images, try using image links where relevant as an additional push to drive traffic to your site;

5. use specialized tools to check your standing with regard to search engine optimization, and regularly check your site's analytics.

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Article Tags: internet, SEO



Related Forum Posts
What Do You Want To Be Taught? - Hi, My name is Jeff Foster, I will be moderating this new section. I want to get your opinion on topics you would like to discuss & be taught on. I see a great need for small business owners to learn how to perform basic Search Engine Marketing (SEM) which would include the basics about Search Engine Optimization (SEO). What do you want to be taught on? Jeff
Re: Search Engine Optimization - If you are interested to get more information about Search Engine Optimization you can visit Search Engine Watch site gives you a great way to keep up with what’s going on in the search engine world. This site provides a ton of information about a very wide range of subjects related not only to search engine optimization, but also the flip side of the coin; subjects related to searching online.
Re: Can someone explain Search engine optimization to me? - Search Engine Optimization (SEO) could be compared to a big popularity contest: A High School Computer Geek and a High School Football Captain who are trying to promote a party. The computer geek tells everyone in school & even hands out 100's of flyers about his party Friday night...what happens? his friends end up showing up and a few new people...even the new people leave right away because it is not what they are looking for. The High School Football Captain ends up just telling a few good buddies, and within hours the entire school not only knows about it, but everyone wants to come, and everyone does come & stay. One defenition of "optimize is "To make as perfect or effective as possibe." How effective are your article marketing campaigns? Could you be distributing content (that is what search engines index) more effectively? In a perfect world, who would you want promoting your website, web pages, and web content? Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is determining this perfect & effective way to do this. Jeff
Re: How do I engage seo works to be done for my site? - I read "Search Engine Optimization" for dummies. Gave me a real good foundation on which to build my sites. Really helped a lot.
Re: How to Promote Your Business Online - Apart from using Search Engine Optimization or SEO for promoting websites, I also find Pay per Clicks (PPC) to be a very good way to do. Why? For me it doesn't open only one oppurtunity for you, in fact it opens 2! You can generate your awaited traffic even w/o saying stop, ready and go and gain a maximized profit too.


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