Some visitors will visit your site, because you wisely included it in your business card or added it to your email signature, but most of your visitors will come from search engines.

If you want people to find your personal home page when they search for your name, and for some reason your site doesn’t appear in the results of the most popular search engines, at worst you’ll be a little less famous and a little more upset.

But, it is much more serious if you are responsible for maximizing the number of potential customers who visit your company’s website, so that they can purchase items from your company’s catalog online. If for some reason search engines show your competitors’ sites before your company’s, then it could mean the difference between your company making or losing money, and being promoted to a corner office or relegated to a street corner.

The enormous popularity of search engines among Internet users is the main reason why commercial companies, especially those whose income is derived mainly or exclusively from online sales, are willing to invest significant resources to fine-tune their websites. and get the best positions in search engines. listings This practice, and now profession, of “search engine optimization” (SEO), is a critical component of online marketing.

How the search engine works

There are hundreds of factors that go into when search engines rank websites in an organic search. Amazingly, they can analyze billions of pieces of data in as little as 0.5 seconds! The actions you take to optimize your site will have a direct effect on your SEO ranking. Components like H1 tags, words used in your website’s meta description, content and keyword density, permalinks, and backlinks are some of the many things you can leverage to improve your rankings.

H1 tags: These are the larger headers you use to title your content. For example, the H1 for this article would be the title, ‘The Basics of Search Engine Optimization’. This article page may appear in Google search results when someone searches for keywords that are present in the H1 tag such as ‘SEO’ and ‘SEO Basics’. Make sure your H1 tags are relevant to the keywords you want to appear for.

keyword density: This is the number of times the keyword your audience is searching for appears on your website. Make sure to mention your keywords, not only in your H1 tags, but also in the body of your content. While you want to include your keywords often, don’t overcrowd your content. Remember, Google will also consider the use of identical keywords.

First, develop a list of all the phrases you can think of that people might use to find your site – short phrases that best describe your business. Then narrow that list down to the two dozen most likely phrases. If you’re having a hard time building a keyword list, take a look at Wordtracker, which is designed to help you optimize your keyword list. Right now, they offer a free trial.

These keywords can and should be located in the text of each page, which is visible to anyone viewing the page in a web browser. Additionally, keywords can be placed in headers, subtitles, image captions, image alt text attributes (), page titles, and anywhere else that seems appropriate.

meta description: This is the description you provide to search engines on your HTML tags. The meta description you use for your website should also include the keywords you want your target audience to search for.

You should keep this in mind when wondering why some or all of the search engines seem to be ignoring your new website. It’s just a needle in a huge haystack. But don’t lose hope

permalinks: This refers to permanent URL links that are specific to your website. It is advantageous to include your keywords in these permalinks in order to be considered for higher ranking in Google. For example, if you have a gardening website and you want your consumers to find the keywords “lawn products”, it would be optimal for you to have a page with a permalink like: http://www.gardening.com/lawn-products.

backlinks: This is when other websites link to yours by providing your audience with your website’s URL. For example, if Forbes mentions your business on their website and includes a link for their readers to your website, this would be considered a backlink. The more of these you have, the better your chances of ranking higher on your keywords. However, the source of your backlinks also influences ranking. Google values ​​quality and the bigger the source your backlink comes from (i.e. Forbes, NY Times, .gov addresses, etc), the better chance you have of ranking higher in their engine optimization search.

Desktop vs Mobile Search Engine Optimization: Is Your Website Mobile Friendly?

Search engines are constantly evolving and changing their algorithm to keep up with new technologies that are constantly being developed. With the rise of mobile devices, more and more people are searching on the go. Google has noticed the increase in mobile traffic from its users and has released a new addition to its search ranking metrics. If your website is not mobile friendly (responsive, optimized to be viewed on various mobile screen sizes), Google will rank your website lower in search rankings. However, this will only affect your mobile search ranking. Search rankings from a non-mobile device, such as a desktop or laptop, will not be affected. This is something to keep in mind if you know your specific target market is more likely to search for your keywords on a mobile device (ie your product is a mobile app).

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Site design and other factors

While embedding well-targeted keywords within your site is recognized as the most valuable SEO technique, there are other elements that pay off: smart site design, reciprocal linking, and compelling page content. To make your site as friendly as possible to search engine spiders: organize pages and links in a logical hierarchy, opt for CSS divs instead of nested tables, use text instead of images for navigation links (or at least have flawless image alt values) and include a sitemap (which serves as an index of links to your pages) if the site has more than a dozen pages.

Proper reciprocal linking is when two or more sites link to each other, as a natural result of the surrounding content on each site. This is quite different, and much more effective, than so-called “link farms”, which are simply empty content pages that contain nothing but links to paying client sites. Search engine companies figured out that trick a long time ago. Consequently, paying someone to include links to your site among thousands of others would not only be a waste of your money, it can also quickly penalize your site in search results, or even blacklist it altogether. .

The best way to attract new visitors to your site, be they humans or spiders, is to offer quality free content. This will encourage human visitors to check back often for new content and also to post links to your site on their own sites and on their blogs. This invariably increases the estimation of your site by search engines. Having new content that matches your specific keywords and phrases will also result in higher search engine rankings, because they always examine words within the context of the surrounding material.

Your SEO strategy should be a long-term process

Getting placed on the first page of a Google search doesn’t happen overnight. Your SEO strategy should be an ongoing process. As technology develops, search engines are also adapting to these changes by altering their algorithms that define how your website is ranked. Stay on top of your SEO strategy and make sure it’s up to date.

Your SEO strategy will go a long way for you and your business with proper maintenance. Not only will you have your current customer base, but you can also passively increase traffic to your website by being present in the top 5 searches for your keywords. Customers will be able to easily find you and your business when searching for relevant information related to your business. A good rule of thumb to stay on top of your SEO strategy is to research the tactics used by your competitors. Google your own keywords and see who ranks in the top 5 searches, then analyze your websites to see how and why they rank at the top.

Search engine optimization is an increasingly important component of smart website promotion. While an article may only touch on the main topics within SEO, you can probably already see how important these methods are in improving your site’s ranking within search engine rankings, and therefore in the eyes of your site. of Internet users for whom “Google” is now a verb. .