SEO - SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION

One of the essentials of online marketing is SEO,
search engine optimization.

SEO is the process involving the techniques of enhancing listing position on search engines and directories often through the use of keywords, key phrases, site structure and site coding. There is no formula to keep your site listed at the top of every search engine. Not only do you have stiff competition, every search engine is different from each other and they modify their criteria on a regular basis.

The benefits of SEO are plentiful. Here a just a few:

• It's low cost in comparison to other marketing campaigns.
  
• Your target market is focused. Qualified visitors.
  
• One of most often used ways that people find your web site.

These are the major steps in successful Search Engine Optimization.

1. Choose the search engines you want to submit your site to.
There are thousands of search engines and directories on the world wide web. Choose relevant and quality search engines. There are many companies offering to submit to 20 000+ search engines. This strategy will backfire. You will get much email spam and you will have too much traffic caused by spiders thus making your pages hard to load for qualified visitors.

2. Organize and list submission specifications.
Each search engine has its own requirements. By organizing and creating submission specifications lists, you will decrease submission errors. Remember that it is harder to fix submission errors than submitting new pages. This will also help you to choose keywords, phrases and set up of your site tags.

3. Compile keywords and key phrases.
Research your competitors. You need to know how to compete. Check their keywords. Think about your clients. What do they type into search engines including misspellings? There can never be too many words and phrases. After you compile your list, only then do you pare down your list accordingly.

4. Integrate your keywords and phrases.
Keywords and phrases need to repeat themselves on your web pages. Use these words properly and make sure they are appropriate to the content of your site. It is important that you do not spam search engines or use spamming techniques. By doing so, you are more likely to be banned by search engines. Don't forget to place these words strategically in your the titles of your pages, meta tags, descriptions, page content, etc.

5. Amass quality sites links to your site.
Many search engines are starting to check the popularity of your site by the amount of other sites linking to you. A link from Microsoft will be rated higher than a link from JoeShmo.com.

6. Submit your sites by hand.
As mentioned previously, there are thousands of services offering to submit your sites to thousands of search engines. We highly suggest that you submit by hand. Many search engines will reject your submission if they think you are spamming and many of these services use spamming techniques. Submit your site individually and to their specifications. Note that some search engines will only allow one page to be submitted. Others will allow a few more.

7. Verify your results on a regular basis.
You might be number one on Yahoo one day and number ten the next day. Search engines are changing constantly. Their criteria are updated regularly and you have competitors submitting daily. This means you have to update keywords, tweak key phrases and remove anything that is not working.