What is SEO
Traffic from search engines is
considered to be the best available traffic. This is because any leads
you do gain from search engine results are pre-qualified. The surfer
will have entered search criteria that match the content of your site
and your keywords. They will have then read the short description
pertaining to your website and subsequently clicked the link. This means
that even before they make it to the pages of your website you will know
that you are offering what they want.
In order to gain search engine
traffic there are a number of different things that need to be done.
Collectively these steps are called Search Engine Optimization. Link
building is a big part of this process and involves getting text links
to your site from other sites. The more popular the site that links to
you the better the link will appear to other search engines. You must
also avoid unethical websites such as those that are deemed as being
spam and those with too many text links on their pages.
The content of your site should
include keywords within your Meta tags and dispersed throughout your
website. Webmasters and SEO specialists hotly debate keyword density
rules but there are general guidelines you should adhere to. In
principle, the more often a keyword or key phrase appears in the text on
your website, the more appropriate your website is believed to be to
this search query. However, if you overdo it then search engines will
consider the content of your site to be nothing but keywords and label
it as spam.
The layout of your page is also
critical and it is important to ensure that you have clear links that
give the structure of your site. Not only will this prove invaluable to
your visitors when they are trying to find certain sections of your site
but it will help search engines to index the whole of your site instead
of just one or two pages. If you use a graphical navigation bar then you
should include an accurate sitemap to help the search engines.
There are also guidelines as to
how quickly the page should load and the amount of graphics you should
include as well as other factors. Keeping on top of how important each
of these factors are to the different search engines is a huge part of
search engine optimization. Because SEO companies deal with this on a
daily basis they also keep on top of any of these developments as and
when they occur, something that most webmaster simply do not have the
time to do.