Search Engine Optimization 101

Search engines are the primary way Internet users find web sites today. That's why websites with good search engine positions will see a dramatic quantity of traffic.

Everyone wants a good search engine position but submitting websites is only part of the challenge. Because many websites fail to consider how search engines work, many will have a poor search engine rank or may not be listed at all. That's why it is important to prepare a web site using search engine optimization techniques.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of making a website rank higher in the search results of major search engines. It ensures that your web pages will be found by search engines and are optimized to take advantage of the criteria search engines use to rank websites.

The task of search engine optimization is made difficult because every search engine uses its own criteria or formula for ranking websites. And, to make things worse, they change their criteria frequently, especially if they suspect a method has been found to fool their system.

How Do You Optimize Your Web Site?

The term search engine is often used to describe both directories and search engines. A directory, like Yahoo, is human powered. A real live person looks at every web site submitted and decides if it should be added to their directory.

Search engines, on the other hand, use programs called spiders, crawlers or robots to index web site information. Examples of major search engines would be Google and Alta Vista.

There are many search engine optimization techniques that can be employed regardless if you are submitting your site to directories or search engines.

The two most effective methods of search engine optimization are:

Link Popularity - Increasing the number of quality links to your website can boost your search engine rank and increase traffic to your site.

Substantial Content - Content is king! More web pages containing real content will improve the search engine position of your web site. Search engines won't be fooled by bogus content such as illegible pages that do nothing but repeat keywords.

For specific strategies on increasing your web site link popularity, adding real content to your website, and many more search engine optimization options, visit our SEO page.