Why Search Engine Optimization is important

• Why search engine optimization is important (by Carsten Cumbrowski & Axandra)
• Optimizing for The Most Important Search Engines (by Greg Shepard/NetTraction)
• How to Improve Your Link Popularity (by Greg Shepard/NetTraction)

Why search engine optimization is important?

812 million people have been using the Internet in 2004 (source: Nielsen/NetRatings). Web users spend twice as much time online as watching TV (source: Stanford Institute for the Quantitative Study of Society). Consumers spent US$199 billion online in 2004 (source: ComScore).

A survey conducted by market research firm TNS revealed that 75% of all online shoppers said that company size was not a factor in having their online shopping needs satisfied. Only 15% said they preferred to shop with large retailers (source: TNS).

More than 80% of all Internet users find new web sites through search engines (source: Georgia Tech/GVU Users Survey). That means that about 650 million people use search engines to find web sites.

Search engine users are some of the most qualified and motivated visitors to your web site you will ever have. After all, they have taken the initiative to hunt for online resources on a certain topic. Then they clicked your link to learn more.

Don't miss the change to get good and free Traffic.
Many Web sites fail because they're designed in a way that prevents people from finding it. Many sites are virtually invisible to search engines.

If your Web designer was not a search engine optimization expert, then you're losing a lot of revenue. You're missing a lot of free traffic if your Web site isn't properly designed and optimized for high search engine rankings.

Increase the link popularity of your site and get targeted free traffic to your web sites.
Reciprocal links add value to your web site, let your web site visitors return to your site, and you'll get targeted traffic from clicks of your links on other web sites.

As a positive side effect, you'll also benefit from increased search engine traffic if you have good incoming links. Almost all major search engines rank your web pages based on the number and the quality of links that point to your web site (link popularity). Google uses link popularity as an important factor in ranking sites. HotBot, AltaVista, MSN, Inktomi and others also use link popularity in their formulas.

Not all links are created equal!
Not only the number of links to your web site is important but also the quality. Don't fall for services that offer 'thousands of instant links to your web site'. These links won't have any positve effect on your site. Only the right links will have a positive effect on your web site.

It's important that the links to your web site are related to your own web site and that these links have value to web surfers.Only high quality links will bring you targeted traffic and increase your search engine rankings.

Focus on your web site visitors. Search engines try to find web sites that are useful for web site visitors. If the linking structure of your web site indicates that it is a useful site, your site will get great search engine rankings as well as targeted traffic from your link partners.

There is no Short Cut. Don't even think about it.
Use only ethical search engine optimization methods. Use only techniques that produce lasting results and that don't offend search engines.

You might get short term results with these techniques but it's very likely that your site will be banned from search engines if you use one of these techniques. You'll put your web business at severe risk if you use one of these methods.

• automatically generated doorway pages
• cloaking and false redirects
• keyword stuffing
• hidden text or hidden links
• pages loaded with irrelevant words
• duplicated content on multiple pages
• misspelling of well-known web sites
• unrelated and centralized link farms
• other methods that try to trick search engines

Optimizing for The Most Important Search Engines

• Use a descriptive <TITLE>. Some search engines give more weight to titles than to body text in a document. Use a title that uniquely describes your page or site. Include this information in the <TITLE> tag of your HTML document. Don't use generic phrases such as "Home Page".



• Place important phrases and summary text near the top of your main document. Put as much descriptive information as possible about your site in its main page (usually index.html). It doesn't have to be long, but be sure to be specific and include important keywords and phrases.



• Use <META> tags. Meta tags allow you to specifically identify important items, such as descriptions and keywords, for a search engine. Not all search engine indexers make use of meta tags, but having them in your documents will not hurt. Meta tags are inserted in the <HEAD> section of your documents and, though there are several types of tags, there are two main types that you should definitely include:



• <META name="description" content="Custom stained glass designs for your home.">



• <META name="keywords" content="stained glass, leaded glass, copper foil, etching, windows and doors">



• Of course, you will modify the content to reflect your particular web site.



• Use the ALT attribute of the <IMG> tag. Some search engines, such as InfoSeek, include the ALT attribute of images in their indexing procedure. If your pages consist of a large amount of graphics, you can use this to gain greater control over how your site is indexed.



• Be careful with frames. Many search engines treat frames as separate links within your site, which may cause the spider to have to revisit your site as it traverses other links. To avoid any problems, use the <NOFRAMES> tag in your main page to include descriptive text and keywords/phrases.



• Don't use text of the same color as the background. It's not unusual to have text appear as the same color as the background, such as when placing menu text over a background color or image. However, some search engines consider this to be an attempt at spamming the engine and might discard such pages. To avoid this, use a similar, but not identical color for such text. For example, instead of white (COLOR=#FFFFFF), you might use COLOR=#FFFBF0 which is nearly identical to the eye but quite different to a search engine spider.



• Choose appropriate categories. Some search engines (such as Yahoo) are organized into subject categories, requiring you to choose the appropriate one when submitting your site. Take some time to peruse their sites and familiarize yourself with the available categories. When choosing a category, be as specific as possible. You may need to "drill down" several levels to find a category appropriate for your listing.

How to Improve Your Link Popularity

• Tip - Make linking to you as easy as possible. Create a page on your web site that includes the HTML code and your keywords in the text link, as explained above. Then, create a button to this page that says "Link to Us".



• Tip - Make sure your titles and descriptions are full of strategic keyword phrases.



• Tip - Give your visitors a good reason to link to your web site. If you provide a valuable service free of charge, your visitors will be eager to link to you. Visitors sent from them will then link to you, and so on. If you can create enough interest by offering a product or service for free, the interest will quickly spread, and in doing so, will increase your link popularity and search engine placement. This is called "Viral Marketing". If you offer a free service to attract attention, your visitors will likely buy other products or services that you are selling. HotMail.com is a perfect example of viral marketing. HotMail’s founder, Sabeer Bhatia, made $400 million dollars by giving away free e-mail addresses!



• Tip - Ask your Friends, Business Partners, Clients, and Vendors. One of the most over-looked ways to build link popularity is to link with your business partners and vendors. Because you have already built a strong relationship with them, they will likely agree to link to your site.



• Tip - For Great Website Ranking, Structure Your Links Properly! This is one of the most important SEO Tips, so READ CAREFULLY! Search engines place a lot of importance on the text contained in the links that point to your website. What a link "says" about your site is known as your "Link Reputation". This is a major factor that search engines will use to determine website ranking. Therefore, links containing your key phrases have a profound effect on search results. It is of great importance to show the webmaster that is linking to you EXACTLY how to construct your link. The keywords in the hyperlink portion are extremely important, so when you send another webmaster your link, make sure that you construct it wisely! For instance, always give them the HTML link code exactly like so: <a href="http://www.YourDomain.com">Your Keyword Phrase</a> Remember, if you have your keywords in the hyperlink, search engines will rank you higher for those words!



• Tip - If you have an affiliate program make sure you get credit for your link popularity. If you are with an affiliate network such as, BeFree, CommissionJunction, LinkShare or others, you will not get credit for your link popularity. In fact, in my experience, there is only one affiliate tracking software that will give you credit for link popularity, and even then, only by request.