Basics of SEO by Harish Sharma - February 1, 2006 This article gives an overview of basics of search engine optimization IntroductionSearch engine optimization (SEO) is an online marketing strategy which is used to increase a Web site's visibility to the millions of people who look for information and various services on the Internet with the help of different search engines available on the internet. Search engine optimization helps rank your company/website among the top search results for a given query/keywords. This can dramatically increase traffic to your Web site and establish a Web presence for your practice. Among other things, SEO involves optimizing the page structure and layout of your website and the text that appears on it, as well as gaining links to your website from other websites, to help make it popular with search engines. Since the number of Web sites on the Internet increasing at an exponential rate, gaining top positions in search engine rankings allows you to market your company in a very powerful and effective way. Page RankPageRank is in some ways related to link popularity, but the calculation is dependant on the quality and strength of the links your site obtained, not just the number of links. So, first question that comes into your mind is how does one go about building and increasing their Page Rank?. It is not as difficult as some may think, but surely require some research and effort. Types of Linking: Internal linking : This also plays a factor in the Page Rank of the pages within a site. The linking structure within the site should follow the themed approach to internal linking, which stresses importance on minimizing linking between 2nd and 3rd level directories and pages. Since the internal linking of your site plays a factor, not in increasing PR, but in sharing the PR of the site, and the dilution of your keyword strength and theme, it is important to review the internal linking structure of your site. Then there are modifications that could be made to improve the site's internal linking. External linking : is the largest factor in determining PageRank, and is the place where you have the least control. There is no way to force another web master to link to your site, especially when they already have a high PageRank. For this reason and many more, increasing your PageRank is difficult, but important nonetheless. When contacting other websites to link to your site in the attempt to build and increase your Page Rank, these web pages that you are requesting a link from should be relevant and of the same theme and market of the page that you are requesting they link to. Perform a search for your target keyword in Google, ODP, and Yahoo to start, and check the top 40 ranking sites. contact them and request that they link to your site. Be prepared for them to ask for a reciprocal link. Your website and pages within your site must meet certain criteria for this to work, with one piece being the most important: the site and pages within your site must be quality content that people will actually want to link up to. This is one of the basic points of Components: There are three major components of search engine optimization that you should keep in mind and incorporate into any design, written Web page content, coded HTML, and programming scripts for your site. 1. Keywords and Phrases – To optimize your site, you must strategically select and place words or phrases into your Web page content and specific HTML tags - the areas from which search engines grab words and phrases to build their indices. If you want your target audience to find your site through a search engine, your Web pages must contain keywords or keyword phrases that match the search queries of your target audience. Often, there are multiple words or phrases that mean the same thing. From an SEO standpoint, it is important to include all the words or phrases your target audience may use in their searches. The closer the match between your Web site's content's keywords and phrases with those terms, the higher you will be ranked in a result set. 2. Web Site Structure and Page Layout –The way you structure your site and design your Web page layout will have a large impact on your site's search engine ranking. This includes how you serve your Web pages (e.g., as static HTML or XHTML pages or dynamically from a database or Web script), the directory structure of your site, the names of your site's directories and individual HTML or XHTML files, and the URLs you choose when selecting your domain names. Also, each Web page on your site needs to be optimized individually to most effectively present the content it contains to the search engines. Thus, the elements of a page's layout, including navigation, site maps, graphics and multimedia elements such as Flash and QuickTime movies, need to be placed correctly on every Web page. Using W3C Web standards such as XHTML and CSS can allow you to place unique content for a given page above its navigational elements, while at the same time reducing the file size of these Web pages. Other factors that affect a Web site's ability to be successfully indexed are the use (and sometimes non-use) of Image Maps, Frames, JavaScript and, most importantly, your Web page title tags. 3. Web Pages Popularity – Putting up a Web site is not enough to market your company competitively on the Internet. For your target audience to find you, your Web site needs to be found easily by search engine spiders/crawlers and then to be ranked well in search engine results sets for the keywords and phrases you have selected and placed in the content of your Web site. Conclusion The process of SEO is not easy to tackle, largely because so many pieces of a site factor into the final results. Promoting a site that writers on the web are unlikely to link to is as deadly as creating a fantastic website no one will see. SEO is also a long-term process, both in application and results - those who expect quick rankings after completing a few suggestions in this guide will be deeply disappointed. Search engines can often be frustratingly slow to respond to improvements that will eventually garner significant boosts in traffic. To make your site the best site, adhere strictly to these guidelines: 1. Unique Content 2. Search engine friendly layout and structure 3. Link-Friendly Formatting 4. Site Monetization Plan ABOUT THE AUTHOR Author: Harish co-founded Varshyl Tech in 2005. As director of operations, he oversees the company’s daily operations and develops the strategy for product direction and new product development. Harish has more than five years of experience delivering mission-critical enterprise software solutions for diverse applications such as supply chain management and corporate information delivery systems. Prior to co-founding Varshyl Tech, he was a program analyst with Infosys Technologies Ltd., and also worked as software developer and testing engineer for Microsoft Projects. Harish has significant experience working with Mainframe technology and holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering from Visvesvaraya Technological University, Karnataka, India. You can also view this and other article by visiting our website http://www.varshyltech.com/home.html |
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