SEO

SEO, or search engine optimization, is the practice of optimizing web pages for search engines so that the pages will place high in search results for target keywords.

Contents 1 Overview of SEO 2 SEO terminology 3 On-page SEO: optimizing your web pages 4 Off-page SEO: inbound links 5 SEO and statistics monitoring 6 Other SEO tips

Overview of SEO

The goal of SEO is increased web traffic. These are the main areas of SEO:

• On-page optimization
• Off-page optimization
• Statistics monitoring and more of the above

SEO terminology

• Black hat SEO: SEO techniques that may work well at first but may get your site banned from search engines. Black hat SEO techniques are done for bots only, provide no benefit to site visitors, and often hinder their experience. Examples:
  • Doorway pages: Also called gateway pages, portal pages, bridge pages, and a few other names. They're pages created just to do well for a particular keyword or keywords, and they have a "Click here" link or automatic redirect that takes visitors to the page with the real content.
  • Keyword stuffing: Using lists of keywords or greatly overusing keywords instead of using them naturally in context.
• Bot: In the context of SEO, bots are search engine robots, also called spiders, that crawl websites to index their content.
• Keywords: Words and phrases that people use to search for information online.
• Keyword density: The ratio of keywords on a page to other words.
• Meta tags: Information that goes in the page header section that's for bots only, for example: <meta name="description" content="Page description here.">
• Organic search results: Search engine search results, in contrast to paid advertising that appears next to search results.
• PageRank: A rank that Google assigns to web pages. Also called PR.
• Reciprocal links: Links between two sites. Site A links to Site B, and Site B links to Site A.
• Satelite: The website that is created only for posting ads and different kinds of links. Such a site is often a part of a link farm.
• SERP: Search engine results page.
• Snippet: The compressed information on the site page presented by search system in delivery page.
• Spider: see Bot.
• White hat SEO: SEO techniques that are acceptable. It's the opposite of black hat SEO. This page discusses white hat SEO.

On-page SEO: optimizing your web pages

For on-page SEO, it helps to know basic HTML. Optimal keyword placement depends on knowing where within the HTML to place keywords.
To optimize each web page for search engines, follow these steps:

• Give each page a specific topic. If you want to optimize a page for "dedicated server web host," give that topic its own page, and give the other services or products you offer their own pages too. Each page can then have a higher keyword density for the topic.
• Research and choose keywords to use for each page.
• Use keywords in page names, for example: example.com/green_widgets.html and example.com/widgets/green_widgets.html.
• Use those keywords in context in the following places:
  • The page title
  • The heading tags, especially <h1> and <h2> tags
  • The page content, especially higher on the page and in bulleted lists
  • Anchor text, for example: "We explain how to assemble widgets on our green widgets page.” (Underlined text would be hyperlinked.)
• Use keywords (but avoid keyword stuffing) in these places:
  • Alt text for images
  • Image file names
  • The meta description tag
  • The meta keyword tag

Good SEO works for site visitors as well as for search engines. If the keywords sound forced into place, you're trying too hard. The text should read naturally, and the keywords should help site visitors find the content they want on the page.

Off-page SEO: inbound links

Bots view links from other sites as "votes" for your web pages. The higher the PR and the more relevant the page is, the more the vote counts.
Reciprocal links still count, but they're less valuable than one-way links.
For this part of SEO, you need to work on getting inbound links from quality sites:

• Relevant directories
• Related web sites
• Social media sites

The number one tip to acquiring inbound links to create content that other people will want to link to. From there, it's a matter of them finding it and you helping them find it. Some ways to get inbound links:

• Request links from webmasters of related sites (after showing them why your content is valuable to their audience)
• Suggest reciprocal links
• Get your site listed in free and paid directories
• Publish press releases with a link to your site at sites that accept press releases
• Write informative articles with a link to your site at article sites
• Take part in forum discussions where your signature appears with your post (and be sure to actually contribute when you post or you'll earn your company a bad reputation)

SEO and statistics monitoring

Your website traffic statistics tell what keywords are bringing site visitors and what other pages they're coming from. You can use this information to continually optimize your site for search engines and provide your audience with the information they're looking for.
Your site stats can also tell you if all the pages at your site are getting traffic. If no one is visiting a particular page, find out why. Are bots indexing that page? If some pages are viewed but aren't getting the traffic you'd like, work on optimizing those pages more, and link to them more from other pages.
SEO isn't a one-time job. Your competitors are working to get ahead of you in search engine results, and you need to keep working on SEO just to hold your position.

Other SEO tips

• Use CSS with external style sheets. Bots will be able to find your content more easily.
• Study what your competition is doing and use some of their ideas.
• Update your content when you can.
• Keep adding new content. Bots like fresh food.

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