Essential Search Engine OptimizationSource: The Ultimate Web Marketing Guide (by Michael Miller) - Chapter 11

What Search Engine looks For?Its all about determining what a pages content is about and how that content relates to the search at hand.The goal of a search engine is to provide the most accurate results to its users. When a search engine ranks search results, its with the intent of delivering the one best answer to that particular users query. Ideally, then, if someone is searching for a particular topic, those sites that best cover that topic will rise to the top of the search results

What Search Engine looks For?There are a number of things the search engines look forKeywords A keyword is a word or phrase entered as part of a search query; the search engine tries to find the keyword on a web page and then determines how important that keyword is on the page.HTML Tags A search engine looks not just to the visible text on your site, but also to the pages underlying HTML codespecifically, the metatdata in the code. This metadata includes your sites name and keyword content, which is specified within the tag. This tag appears in the head of your HTML document before the tag and its contents. A typical tag looks something like this:

What Search Engine looks For?Inbound Links if a site has a lot of other sites linking back to it, its probably because that site offers useful information relevant to the site doing the linking. The more links to a given site, the more useful that probably is. This is where Google got their PageRank algorithm which is based primarily on the number and quality of sites that link to a particular page. If your site has a hundred sites linking to it, for example, it should rank higher in Googles search results than a similar site with only ten sites linking to it. And its not just the quantity of links; its also the quality.

Optimizing your Site`s ContentThere are lots of SEO tricks and tools you can employ, but the most effective thing you can do to improve your search ranking is to improve your sites content. What is Quality Content?Quality content is useful content. Its informative, and its accurate. Its grammatically correct, its punctuated properly, it reads well. Its original, its lean and mean, and its on point. It is relevant to the topic at hand and, most important, it is authoritative. In most cases, quality content is not overtly promotional or commercial in nature. Its content that informs the reader without being self-serving. It answers important questions without leaving more questions unanswered. It serves a useful and practical purpose.

Optimizing your Site`s ContentWhy Does Quality Content Matters?Quality content is all about delivering relevant results. other reasons for improving your sites content is to better your sites content, the more satisfied your users will be.In addition, the better the content on your site, the more likely it is that other sites will link to itand these inbound links are also important to your sites search ranking. If your sites content disappoints, other sites wont link to you; if your content excels, youll get a lot of links without having to ask for them.

Providing Authoritative FunctionYou want your site to have content so complete that users wont have to visit any other site to find out more about your given topic. Include every piece of information thats relevant you establish your site as the leading authority on the topic. Offering targeted information is often a better approach than being unnecessarily comprehensive. The core of providing authoritative information is knowing what that information should bewhich is a function of knowing what your target visitor is looking for.

Writing Engaging CopyEngaging copy involves more than just including all the keywords youve identifiedwhich could be viewed as keyword stuffing. This is a technique wherein the site owner inserts multiple instances of a keyword onto a page, often using hidden, random text, in an effort to increase the keyword density and thus increase the pages apparent relevancy of a page. Most search engines today view keyword stuffing as a kind of search related spam and employ sophisticated algorithms to detect the technique.

Crafting SEO-friendly ContentYour sites content not only has to be authoritative and engaging, but it also has to be presented in such a fashion that search engines notice it. This means making your content SEO-friendly which may be a new skill for you.Use Words, not picturesInclude Keywords in your CopyRepeat keywords and phrases naturally Make the important stuff more prominentBreak up the copyLength matters

Optimizing your Site`s keywordsAll search optimization revolves around the use of keywords and key phrases. Whether youre talking the content on a page or the code that underlies that content, you use keywords to give your content and code more impact Performing Keyword ResearchThe art of determining which keywords to use is called keyword research, and its a key part of SEO.

When you know which keywords and phrases that your target customers are likely to use, you can optimize your site for those words and phrases; if you dont know how theyre searching, you dont know what to optimize.

Perform Keyword ResearchThese keyword research tools work by matching the content of your website with keywords relevant to that content; theyve already searched through hundreds of thousands of possible keywords and phrases on the most popular search engines and mapped the results to their own databases. Some of the more popular keyword research tools include the following:KeywordDiscovery (www.keyworddiscovery.com)Wordtracker (www.wordtracker.com)WordZe (www.wordze.com)

Determining the Right Keyword DensityKeyword density is the number of times a keyword or phrase appears compared to the total number of words on a page. A lot of different keywords on a long page, you could have a density of 20% or more and still rank fine. If you only have a handful of keywords on a short page, a 5% keyword density might be too much

Writing Key Word Oriented CopyWeb copywriting is very similar to direct response copywriting. You have to describe things in words, not pictures, and if youre selling something, provide a strong why to buy message.The big difference between direct response copywriting and web copywriting is that with web copywriting, you have two different audiences: the sites visitors and the search engines. This means you have to provide readable, compelling copy for your visitors, while at the same time incorporate all the necessary keywords and phrases that matter to the search engines.

Writing Key Word Oriented CopyThis means you have to provide readable, compelling copy for your visitors, while at the same time incorporate all the necessary keywords and phrases that matter to the search engines. Two other good places to include keywords are in your pages first and last paragraphs. theres little benefit to short copy. Not only do readers want as much information as possible, longer copy provides more opportunity for you to place your keywords and phrases without overly increasing keyword density

Optimizing your Site`s HTML TagsAnother important use of keywords is within your sites HTML code; most search crawlers scan specific HTML tags for information they use in indexing a page. TagsThe title is the text that appears in the title bar of a web browser; the title should present your pages official name and provide a glimpse to its content. Its also an effective place to use your chosen keywords.

Tags & TagsA title cant exceed 64 characters; any additional text is truncated. So you have to keep the 64-character limit in mind but aim to include from three to ten words total. This makes the title both readable for users (short enough to scan) and useful for search engines The tag is actually several tags, each with its own specific attribute that conveys so-called metadata (data about your page) to the search crawlers. There are two primary attributes DESCRIPTION and KEYWORDS.

TagsDESCRIPTION attribute. The text assigned to this attribute is used by some search engines as the description for your web page in their search results. This means you want to think of the DESCRIPTION text as a short promotional blurb that describes what your page is about.

The second important tag uses the KEYWORDS attribute. This attribute is your opportunity to tell the search engines which keywords your page is targeting.

Header Tags & Anchor TagsA header is a heading or subheading within your body text, kind of like a newspaper headline or the headings between sections in this book. The HTML standard lets you use six different levels of headings.

The anchor text is one of the elements that search engines evaluate to determine the value of a link. You can increase the value of an outbound or intrasite link by including keywords in the anchor text. This lets the search crawlers know that the site youre linking to is related to the keywordand thus a more relevant link.

Optimizing Your Sites Design and OrganizationWhen it comes to SEO, content is king, but design is also important. A good design can help search crawlers identify key content, while a bad design can negatively impact how your site ranks. In fact, some designs can actually make your site invisible to search crawlers.

Optimizing Your Sites Design and OrganizationMost Important Stuff First on the PageSearch crawlers start at the top of a page and then read downwardthey may not read the entire page, so its essential to put the most important elements at the top of your page, in the main headings, and in initial paragraphs. Use Headings and Sub headingsPages heading tags are singled out by most search crawlers on the assumption they highlight the most important content of your siteUse Text, Not picturesSearch crawlers does not read images.

Optimizing Inbound LinksIts imperative to work on increasing the inbound links to your site. You need to work not just on the quantity of these links, but also their quality; the more relevant and authoritative the sites that link to yours, the higher the import that search engines will assign to those links. Creating Link worthy ContentThe keys to creating link worthy content are to be authoritative, creative, and add value not found in competing sites.

Making Link RequestsMaking link requests is an important part of any SEO strategy, but sometimes you have to be a bit aggressive in creating new inbound links.Its as simple as identifying the site or blog (based on its relevance and quality) and then sending an email to the sites webmaster or author.The actual request process requires some hands-on work. Compose an email, addressed to the correct person, that describes your site, why its relevant to his site or blog, and then ask that person to create a link to your site. Make sure you include the URL of the landing page on your site to which you want them to link.

Purchasing LinksLink purchasingpaying for links back to your site. This could involve sending another site a one-time check or perhaps agreeing to share some portion of your sites ad revenue. Some marketers view link purchasing as a black hat technique, somehow less pure than trading links or generating links organically. But there are some good reasons to consider this approach

Optimizing Links Between Pages on SiteThese internal links are important for a number of reasons.internal links help the individual pages on your site to get noticed by the various search crawlers. Search crawlers actually look for internal links; they use these links to identify further pages on your site. For this reason, you should include links to all your important pages on your sites home page, as well as in your sites menu and navigation system

Optimizing Links Between Pages on SiteSecond, using a keyword or phrase in the anchor text accompanying an internal link helps to build the relevancy of the linked-to pageThis also increases the ranking of your sites internal pages with that search engine. The closer a page is from your sites home page, in terms of number of clicks, the higher that page will rank with the search engine

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