Search Engine Optimization Basics

Improving your Search Engine Optimization
WebVidco SEO Services

I would like to discuss some of the basic methods for generating and increasing traffic to your website. You have probably heard the term search engines, but there are also terms such as, indexing, spiders, robots and many other functions that assist the search engines. The major search engines also use special algorithms to look at text and text relevancy. They want to see that the text in your Meta tags and description and head tags are relevant to your website. For example don’t list all 50 states in your meta tags hoping the search engines will be routed to you if one of the states comes up. Also don’t put invisible text buried in the background, the search engines have caught on to this as well. Many search engines can see this as search engine spamming and will drop you, so be relevant.

Try not to use special spaces or characters in your head title or meta, those can be detrimental to the search engine. Be careful with expensive guarantees from companies that promise high rankings. When someone promises you #1 placement what are they promising? Are they promising that your company will come up #1, are they promising that your company with an industry term will come up #1, also by country, by state? You should routinely check your own search engine rankings through each search engine not just one. You should enter specific key words and then try broader terms, see where you really some up. You should also submit your website to the major search engines such as goggle, msn, yahoo and ask. It is not a bad idea to submit to some of the mid level search engines, try www.addme.com for example. Be wary of purchasing software that guarantees submission to hundreds and even thousands of search engines. By optimizing your website properly for specific key words you can take advantage of one of the least expensive marketing tools in our lifetime, the internet.

1. Email Links:
The first method and one of the simplest methods to get people clicking to your website is free, by including the link in your email signature. In your e-mail simply put links to your website URL’s in your signature. Hopefully this will encourage click through to your website. Try adding a reason, something of interest for people to want to click through.

2. Banner Links:
The second way to generate traffic is with a banner link exchange program. Just enter banner link exchange in your search engine and thousands or programs will come up. You simply enter you banner code and put that banner link on your site. Try to keep with a link that would compliment your website and not detract or confuse the message in your site. I recommend all external links open new browsers so as not to take the user away from your website by accident. This is an easy way to get started.

3. Title / Head Tag:
The third method for optimizing your website is to make sure you have a title in the Explorer bar at the top of the website. This is one of the first things search engines look for. Each page should have a title reflecting the most important group of words for the search engines, followed by the page title. Ie Real Estate Annapolis Maryland and for each page after Real Estate Annapolis Maryland, Property Search.

4. Incoming Links:
The fourth technique for generating traffic to your website is to get your website linked on as many other websites as possible. So take a look at other websites you can have reciprocal links with as well as ones that would benefit from having your content on their site. Writing articles for other to post on their site with links back to your website. Your articles may be picked up from your blog or URL Be sure to copyright all material to insure your name and URL link stays with the article. Be sure to submit your articles to some of the ezine directories online. Just do a search for ezine directories and many will come up on the search engines. Also, contact friends and do reciprocal links including if they are in the same industry in another part of the country. Also by joining trade associations your website can have incoming links from your listing on their site. Check out several business registers or online listings. Many will let you post your website for free. Try to have internal links from one key word to another page on your site. Understand outgoing links help the sites you are linking to, the text may help you on your site, but you want incoming links.

5. Blogs and Podcasts:
The fifth technique for generating “free” traffic to your website is blogging. Blogs have become a popular forum for people to get out their message and also links. You can create a free blog account at http://www.blogger.com. Setting up an account is easy and free. Use your blog to discuss topic, industries about your product or service. Then use pingomatic.com or pingoat.com. These two websites will let other blogging services know that you have updated your sites. On your blog, promote links to your websites and e-mail. Keep your content updated or the blog may drop you. Take this a step further and create a podcast or video podcast, submit to RSS feeds. Make the content timely and informative. Put your videos on You Tube, video are coming up higher on the research engines. Create your own online tv show and interview people, have informative content. Be sure to submit to RSS feeds, it got you to this article!

6. Relevant Content/Header Tags:
The sixth technique is you content, content, content! Your content and meta data should all be relevant to your site otherwise the search engines may wee you attempting to spam them. Your title and meta description should reflect if possible word for word in the text somewhere in the body. The search engines like relevant content that is updated and kept fresh. Neglected websites have historically fallen from higher rankings. Make sure your meta tags are relevant, many search engines don’t like misleading meta tags, for example don’t list all 50 states. Most important are meta descriptions, come up with a short concise description of your business, product or services. Your meta description is what I call your elevator speech. Make sure you do all of this for each webpage. Name all of the photos, images and videos something relevant to your industry or market. For example a photo called George or Image is not very relevant, better would be home inspector or house, again something relevant to your market. It is said text is key, have relevant and timely articles, keep them updated and newsworthy. Let you r website become the source for free information and people will visit your site. Also use header tags to help index the sites for the search engines, these are in the HTML code and are an H1, or H2 etc., inside <>. This indexes the titles, subtitles and so on.

7. Site Maps: The seventh and newer and very important method is to create a site map of your website a general one and a Google Site Map. This will map out your site and help get it updated to the search engines on a regular basis. There are other types of site maps such as ROR, Text and HTML site maps all should be part of your arsenal for the search engines.

8. Pay Per Clicks:
The eight method to consider for SEO is pay per clicks on Google, Yahoo (Overture) and others. This involves setting up a pay per account a setting fees you are willing to pay for certain words and phrases. This can get your name up quickly but become costly. If you do this set limits on your daily or monthly budget or you could end up owing thousands of dollars. Also there is no way to verify who is clicking through and you may have hundreds or thousands of dollars in fraudulent click throughs. This can be a useful tool but take precautions when using this service.

9. Affiliate Links:
The ninth method for generating traffic and sales to your website is with affiliate links. This is where you place your product or service on websites that act as brokers such as click bank and commission junction. These can be costly to offer you product as what many called a “publisher”. You can also get software a create affiliate links on your own from your website. Affiliate links are basically encoded links, which provide the end user, or” advertiser”, a unique link of your ULR “banner”. A product or service and they put that code on their website. If a click through generates a sale you would pay them a commission that you would set ahead of time. This is like having your own sales force that you only pay if a sale is generated.

10. Press Releases:
The tenth is to do press releases. You can email local and national newspapers, radio and television your press release. But now there are free online press releases. Again they will many times allow a link back to your website.

Here is an excellent video on Search Engine Optimization Show Me How Videos www.showmehowvideos.com.

For help with improving your search engine optimization please feel free to Contact Us for help. We offer consulting services as well as help our clients manage their websites to help improve their traffic and status.

Search engines are the roads to your websites but there are various vehicles to get there.


Check out upcoming videos at: http://www.showmehowvideos.com

Remember Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
Stephen Showalter, PresidentWebvidco http://www.webvidco.com

"Where Website Development & Video Production Come Together"

Stephen Showalter started a local business and built it up to a national company that he sold in 1995. During this time he developed strategies for a national company brand and developed a national training company that included marketing strategies.

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