Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Excessive optimization can actually harm the ranking of a website. Since there are people trying to manipulate the search results of a search engine, the search engine developers work very hard to isolate such cases and punish them by reducing their ranking.

The examples are - running link farms, keyword spamming etc.

There are serveral factors that play into ranking a page for a given set of keywords. Some factors are well known and are even advertised by Google. Some other factors are not so well known are just the guesswork of different people working in this area.

When a website gets indexed by the search engine bots, they scroll down all the code and words on each webpage. Since they begin at the top of the page, all the way down to the bottom, title tag and other tags serve as an intro paragraph to the theme of the web page. Being uniform, concise, and offering relevant keyword density and content is the best method to get a site indexed well for the set of keywords you like.

Content

Write 250 words or so of copy that is relevant to that page. Make sure that you're using the same wording as the title tag, URL, and H1.

Keyword density

Keyword density is the ratio of a particular search query’s terms in comparison to all terms on the page. Use www.ranks.nl to research the keyword density of a page.

Keywords should be frequently used without making the page difficult or confusing to read. If over used for no reason there is a possiblity to be penalized for “spamming” keywords. Ideally it is best to write the page first with your readers in mind and then look for places to use your keywords.

Limited keywords per page

Focus on 2-3 keywords or phases per page such that the theme of a page is clear for the search engine.

Choosing appropriate keywords for your webpages
Consistent use of keywords on a page is an important aspect of search engine optimization because search engines scan web pages for words and phrases that match or are related to users’ search terms. As a general rule, the more often a search term appears on a page, the more relevant the page will appear to search engines for that search term.

Creating better title tags

The title tags appear at the top of the browser window. Put the most important keywords in this area. The total character length, including spaces, should not exceed 68 characters.

The syntax should be like: <title>Related Keywords | Company Name</title>

Creating better description tags

The description does not improve the search ranking, The primary purpose of the meta description tag is to control the text that is shown for your web pages in search engine result pagesIf the meta description tag is absent from the HTML, the search engine will create a description based in the content of the page. The drawback of this is that the search result can be less than optimal and is left out of your control. In this case the search result does not give an optimal description of the page content and could hinder click-throughs to the page.

Rightly positioning the keywords
Keywords are most valuable at certain places on a page. Search engines place more weight on keywords that are positioned in more visible places on the page.

Headings and links, for example, stand out more than normal text and are weighted more heavily by search engines. The title tag is the most important place to use keywords. Other helpful places to use keywords include:

• Headings
• The first paragraph
• Links

Improving links back to your website

If you want to optimize for Google then incoming links is the most important factor. Google's search criteria keep changing, bu they always give utmost importance to the incoming links to your web page. However, effective linking strategies take time to develop. Google ranks individual URLs by the number of other URLs which have links to it, and also to the URLs that particular URL links to. One link pointing to a site gives the site one positive vote in the algorithm; two gives it two votes, and so on.

Equally important is the quality of sites which have links to your site. Your site is given a higher ranking if the site that links to yours is also a highly ranked site which offers rich and relevant content.

You can use this free site to see which companies are linking to specific pages: http://www.backlinkwatch.com/

Topical Relevance of inbound links

Besides the inbound links, the text inside the anchor tags is also very important. For example, if your targeted keyword is "George Bush" but the inbound link on another website goes by the text "miserable failure", your page will be seen relevant for the keywords "miserable failure" even though these keywords may not appear anywhere in your webpage.

Topical relevance is very important as far as at least Google is concerned. That's how they have built their page rank algorithm and it has worked very well for them so far. So, make sure when you get inbound links, the anchor text for those links is also relevant to the content of your page.

• Classified as Long-Tail (multiple keywords), Short-Tail (specific keyword groups) or Highly Competitive Terms
• keywords that are overly competitive will take several months; while moderately competitive will keep a steady flow of traffic immediately
• to compare long-tail vs short-tail
  • Short tail - broad or general search - “buy a car”
  • Long tail - “Buy a New Black 2008 Ferrari Spyder in Chicago”
• For a content-rich site with multiple categories, long-tail optimization could maximize conversion by delivering thousands of unique visitors as each page could be optimized for multiple terms
• Search Engine Positioning Factors:
  • Content and composition: Well written content reinforced by up-linking to the appropriate pages. Link to authority sites or sites that rank higher than your own for the subject.
  • Categorization and Orderliness of Related Data
  • Link Building and Promotion:
  • Feedback, Traffic and Popularity
• To find out competing pages for a keyword, google the keyword by putting "in quotes". For example, i checked that for the keyword "nutrition" there are 114,000,000 google search results, while something niche as "organic food" has 3,850,000 results. Thus, may be building content on "organic food" makes more sense.
• Promoting links
  • submit pages on sites like http://www.articlemarketer.com/
  • Blogging
  • Social media
  • Facebook and Orkut communities around a specific topic

Picking the best keywords is crucial to any online marketing campaign. If done right, it gets remarkable increase in web traffic. Keyword research is a long, arduous and ongoing process.

Know your audience

Some people search using complete sentences and some use basic words. So understand what keywords users are searching for in their own words. Just to use a quick example, the auto-industry sells "pre-owned cars," while the consumer searches for "used cars".

Audience's native slang also makes a lot of difference. For example, a refreshing drink can be called as "soda", "pop", "fizz" or "coke" based on user's geography. Based on US English and UK English, "color" and "colour" are simply spelling variations but mean the same thing.

Start with a "Hub Term"

A "Hub Term" is a unique word from which many other keywords and key phrases and their variations originate. Before reading ahead, do note that achieving higher ranking for hub terms is near impossible.

Your hub term should not be too broad or too specific.There can be single word or two- or three-word combinations qualifying as hub terms. Don't need to worry about stemmed variations. For instance if you sell "teaching supplies" then stick to the root word "teach" and don't worry about "teacher," "teaches," or "teaching".

A single page can be optimized for numerous keywords as far as they are spikes of a single hub.

Use Keyword Research Tools

Search for your hub term in any of the wide range of Keyword Research Tools like Wordtracker. You can use multiple tools to get varied data. Note all the related hub terms. Take a spreadsheet and add your hub term and all the related terms.  

Wordtracker collects search data – the words real people use when they do real searches online. It analyzes and count these search phrases, and give users a variety of tools to use them in creative ways to bring relevant visitors to their websites.

Then there are tools like Google Adwords, Quintura, L3xicon.

Prioritize Keywords

Take your keyword spreadsheet and then prioritize keywords that will provide you with the best opportunities and will have a more immediate impact on your optimization campaign.

Search Volume can give us some leads. Search volume is the number of times that each core term is searched on a daily, monthly or yearly basis.Don't get caught up with high volumes. High volumes does not mean that they are the best keywords. Though more often a keyword is searched provides better opportunity to drive traffic, the low-volume keywords can bring more return on investment.

It is a long-haul journey

For new businesses and websites it tough to get high rankings. If your site isn't at least a few years old, your SEO efforts will be less likely to provide the results you want. So always plan for long-term.

Goal

The goal for SEOs and businesses should be how to get more targeted traffic and how to convert visitors to customers. Do not make "ranking high" as your goal. Sites that generate smaller amounts of targeted traffic see a better return on investment than sites that generate larger amounts of untargeted traffic.

Content

Businesses need to focus on making content work better for both their users and the search engines. Do not write content for the sake of creating content. Good content isn't stuff content writers write for the search engines. The focus should be on building unique content. The content should be such that it makes your site the best in the space for your site visitors. And thats what brings targeted visitors to your website.

Keyword density may not be a very important factor in determining the page rank. However, it does give an idea of what a particular page is about. It shows a different picture of that page (if someone was to scan the page).