SEO: An Overview

admin — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 06:09:04 +0000

Chances are, since you are exploring this site, you want to know what search engine optimization is all about. A basic definition: search engine optimization is all about getting your website listed at the top of the search results (predominantly in Google) in order to acquire relevant traffic of users interested in your services. There are many different methods employed by SEO professionals. They are most broadly split into two different sections, on-site and off-site. We’ll talk about both a little bit.

On-Site Search Engine Optimization

On-site SEO is exactly what you think it would be, it is a type of optimization that takes place entirely on your site. There are several common things being done here and a bunch of advanced concepts, but only a few that are worth talking about broadly.

Content: As they always say, content is king. A site with hundreds of well written pages of content that appears relevant and useful will beat out another site in the search engine rankings, all things being equal. Writing appropriate content means writing around your target keywords and phrases.

Page interlinking: This is an important section of your site. The first thing a search engine looks at is what you think your website is all about. When you link out to different pages with nicely descriptive phrases as an anchor (this is considered the visible text section of a link), a search engine will assume that it describes it well.

This is why it is considered bad to link pages like this: “click here to read my article” but good to link articles like this: “read my article about Russian poodles“.

Meta tags: Meta tags are little tags stuck in the section of your HTML page with attributes like title, keywords, and description. These tags should closely reflect EACH pages content accurately, but should NEVER be site wide. The title tag should be an easily readable title for the page with the target keyword in there. The keywords meta tag usually contains about 5-10 keywords that were discussed in the article. Note: most search engines (like Google) disregard the keyword meta tag. Don’t use it unless you feel like giving your competition a list of your keywords. The description tag should be a concise one or two sentence description about the page and should feature the target keyword as well.

Off-Site Search Engine Optimization

After the base site has been heavily optimized, it is usually time to embark on a campaign of this sort. The bulk of high level search engine optimization is often thought to be off-site. There is one predominant aspect to this, and that is link-building.

Link building: This is an often monotonous and laborious process. It involves contacting relevant or related sites and convincing them to link to you. The anchor text for carrying specific keyword value and blooms with relevance, but the linking site’s strength is a trumping factor. Even the most well manicured links on an unpopular website will have marginal benefits in the end.

Tenacity and Growth

The absolute best way to go about search engine optimization is to get assistance in learning it yourself and then practice it tenaciously and repetitively. Target growth in content and back links and the search engine traffic will increase on its own accord. In the end, its all about a little elbow grease and the appropriate knowledge.

Using Proper Tools

Like most professionals, SEO’ers also have tools. SEO tools are a dime a dozen, but rank checkers are universally popular. There are also great sites like SEOmoz.org that charge a monthly fee to access useful and well made SEO tools. Just make sure you are using them if you are paying the price for them!

MidMo » basics

SEO: An Overview

On-Site Search Engine Optimization

Off-Site Search Engine Optimization

Tenacity and Growth

Using Proper Tools