Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is an important issue when discovering that everybody under the sun has a Web site in the same category as you. SEO exists to allow ones Web site to be discovered by page ranking your site higher than others. To real estate is location, location, location, but to Web sites is ranking, ranking, ranking. There's no guarantee to getting one's Web site ranked on the first search engine page results through the SEO strategies, but there are ways to getting one's Web site ranked appropriately better than the rest. Here's a few SEO strategies or tips to get your Web site ranked better than the rest.

1. One of the most sought after inquires one SEO is how many times should one use a keyword on a Web page? Rumors have it; in regards to SEO that too much or too little mentioning of your keyword can have detrimental effects on how your Web site stands out from purely the page ranking view. The truth is that keywords are used by spiders or robots to rank a Web site in search engines. The effective approach is to have about 1.2% of your keyword mentioned on a single page. In other words, for about every 100 words, 1 to 2 keyword uses are appropriate. Some experts in this field have different thoughts as to the range of keyword usage such as 1.5% to 5%, but currently to date the "sweet spot" is 1.2% for an effective Search Engine Optimization.
2. The second way of increasing your page rank is by saturating the first few paragraphs as much as possible with the keyword, but still adhering to the 1.2% rule. As the spider or robot reads each word within the HTML page, it runs through a basic system of events. Here's how the Search Engine Optimization takes effect. First, it scans the "h" (header) tags from 1 through 6, but in between these "h" tags it reads the paragraph content as well. This means that they read or search for keywords in the "ul" (unordered list) tags, the "li" (list item) tags, the "dl" (definition list) tags, the "dt" (definition term) tags, and the "dd" (definition description) tags. Also, title and alt tags, which can be used just about anywhere, are great for spiders or robots to read as well and helps the ranking of your page and SEO directives.
3. The next step is to delve into your Meta tags. Meta tags tell information about the page to spiders or robots. In the beginning of page ranking successfully, the Meta tags where thought of as the most important aspect of finding the Web site, which was true back then (1994 to 2004), however now things have changed to more content rich Web sites. This is so true as to the enormous red flagged multi-level marketing (MLM) splash pages that are now being kicked off Google's search engines due to the lack of content rich information. Google does not see these types of Web pages as viable and worthy Web sites; so content rich pages are the way to go these days (even though these Web pages are not viable and worthy). Lastly here, according to Jacob Nielsen that wrote the book Prioritizing Web Usability he states that, "The more concrete your text, the better your site will rank in search engines (81).
4. The fourth step in SEO according to the downloadsquad by Sue Polinsky is to link to and from other equivalent Web sites. She states that, "Be selective in giving and getting links and don't give one if you don't get one!" It's important to consider exactly what pages are linking to you and what pages you are linking due to the type of content that lays on the other Web page. To add, the phrase that you would use in order for the user to click is important too. Instead of writing a link that says, "here" instead write out exactly what the complete Web site is.
5. Lastly, Google Adwords increases the rank. These are paid for by you or if you’re the Web designer or developer then your client is going to pay for this. It's not that costly if you use your purchased ads sparingly due to the benefit of attracting more users to your Web site and buying or purchasing whatever your selling on the Internet. Remember, the Web is a way for people to seek what they are looking for and if they can find it off to the side within Google Adwords then wouldn't it be great to have a couple of those users see and click your ad because it relates to them more?

Many topics can help your or your clients Web site get better page rank, however these are the pertinent ones that must be at the top of your list. To continue on the subject from a general view, some people might go as far as hiring a professional. However, keep in mind that there is no sure way of getting a high page ranking and the industry has the definition of "black-hat" to mean that a consultant claims that he/she can guarantee it. Further Jakob Nielsen adds there are tricks called Cloaking, Search Spam, Link Farms, Comment Spam, and Domain Repurposing (160).

The sure way of getting a good page raking only falls into a few requirements. Jakob Nielsen continues and admits that only "major companies, government agency, or incredibly famous brand names that no other major organization in the world uses" [will have their Web page with a high priority standing] (81).

Monitoring the content closely is an important task here, so there are companies out there that have devised tools to assist in this area of concern. For example, Smashing Magazine has an article on their Web site that points to a particular tool among others. The link goes directly to the URL address: http://www.seocompany.ca/tool/seo-tools.html, which is a HTP company. On this site the number one tool to this report date is Website Analysis Tool. This tool can help your clients (and you) get a good page ranking. Or try this one as well from the popular Jakob Nielsen, which notes that yahoo! has a way to find out what keywords to use. It works like this, "free Keyword Selector Tool lets you enter a term and get suggestions for related terms. Yahoo! also tells you how frequently its users searched for each of the suggested terms in the last month" (166), now try that on for size.