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Top Ten SEO Questions and
Answers
Owning any type of
online business will strongly benefit from a few SEO techniques.
However, everyone and their brother has advice on how to do it. All this
'expert' advice can make the simple task of optimizing your site incredibly
confusing.
Here are some
straightforward answers to the most common SEO questions.
1. What is SEO?
SEO stands for search
engine optimization. A search engine is a tool many internet users use to
find sites that are relevant to their needs. The three biggies when it comes
to search engines are Google, Yahoo and MSN. There are however, hundreds of
search engines available to internet users. Search engines work by sending
out spiders to crawl through the World Wide Web and gather information. If
you have the information they're looking for, in the places they are
looking, they'll find you and place you in their results when a person is
looking for your information.
The task of understanding
what search engines are looking for and putting it in the right places on
your website and in your content, is the essence of search engine
optimization. So now you might be asking…what do search engines look for and
where do they look for it? The answer is keywords and links. Keywords in
your html coding, keywords on your webpage content, keywords in your
content, and the number of incoming links you have to your website.
2. How important is SEO?
Let's just put it this way.
What's better a few visitors who stumble upon your website or hundreds of
visitors that go to your website with the direct intention of learning more
or making a purchase?
With more and more people
searching and shopping online, getting on the first page or two of the
search engine results can mean the difference between keeping your day job
and becoming an internet millionaire.
3. What are text links?
Links are just one of the
tools you can use to increase your search engine optimization. The more
quality links you have, the better your search engine ranking will be. Text
links are links that contain only text. Wikipedia is a great place to
examine internal text links. The links are contained within a sentence and
when a reader clicks on them they are taken to a different page on the same
website. The kind of text links you're looking for will be text links that
will take readers from your article, ebook, or web copy to your website.
An excellent tool to
generate incoming links is to write copy for online audiences like article
directories, blogs, and ezines and insert text links in the copy. Webmasters
will link to the content and thus to your site. Additionally, when you allow
free reprints of your copy provided the links are maintained, you're
encouraging links to your website.
4. What are link farms
and link exchanges?
Search engines don't accept
just any old link. The link has to be from a relevant and quality company.
This means you don't want to participate in link farming. If a search engine
suspects your links to be lacking, they'll actually penalize you. Link
farming or link exchanging is essentially the process of exchanging
reciprocal links with Web sites in order to increase your search engine
ranking. A link farm is a Web page that is nothing more than a page of links
to other sites. Stay away from link farms. When you generate a link from
another site, it had better be relevant and coming from a real web site.
5. What is duplicate
content?
The definition of duplicate
content is web pages that contain substantially the same content. Search
engines will penalize you for this. How do you avoid duplicate content?
Don't publish the same article in several locations. There are many tools
available online to help you re-write your content so that it is 30%, 40%,
and even 50% different. However, the best way to avoid duplicate content is
to simply write new content.
6. How do I find the
right keywords?
There are several steps to
finding the most profitable keywords. The first step is to generally do a
bit of brainstorming and come up with a list of keywords you think people
will use to find your products. The next step is to research supply and
demand for those particular keywords. Supply means how many other websites
are using those same keywords and demand is how many people are looking for
those particular keywords.
The key is to find keywords
with high demand and relatively low supply. There are many effective and
useful keyword tools to help you find this information and to generate
keyword ideas. Once you decide on a few keywords, it may be useful to do a
bit of testing before you commit to them.
7. How do I optimize my
web pages?
Placing your keywords in
the right location is a good start to optimizing your web pages. Search
engines look to the headings, subheadings, domain name, and title of your
website. They also look in the content on your page and primarily focus on
the first paragraph.
Try to get a domain name
with your primary keyword included. When you include your keyword in your
URL it tells the search engine spiders immediately what your site is about.
Title Tag. Your
title tag is the line of text that appears on search engine results pages
that acts as a link to your site. This is a crucial element of your webpage
as it describes to your visitors what your page is about.
If you view your source
code, your title tag will look something like this: <TITLE>Search Engine
Optimization Tips</TITLE>
Keep your title tags brief,
descriptive, up to date, and keyword rich will help to increase the
relevance of your site in the eyes of the search engines, as well as giving
your potential visitors a good idea of what they can expect from your site.
Meta Tags have lost
their importance to the search engines however it is still helpful to place
your keywords in your meta tags. In your source code they look something
like this: <META NAME="description"
8. Do I need to submit my site to
the search engines?
The simple answer is - no.
Search engine spiders are always out there doing their job and collecting
information. Every time you update your website, add content, or change your
keywords, the search engines capture the information and record it. However,
if you want to be listed on a directory, like the DMOZ Open directory
project, then you will need to submit to those.
9. What are spiders?
Search engine spiders are
also called web crawlers or bot. They're basically automated programs which
scan websites to provide information to search engines often for the purpose
of indexing or ranking them.
10. How does content
help my SEO?
Content is one of the best
tools to improve your search engine ranking. It is a great place to
emphasize keywords, encourage linking to your site, and increase traffic.
The key to content is to make sure you're offering quality content and
you're updating your website and your content frequently. Content can be
provided in many forms including:
* Blogs
* Forums and chat rooms
* Articles
* Reviews
* Case studies
* Reports
* How to guides
* Tutorials
* e-books and much more.
About the Author:
Jeremy Gislason
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