Search Engine Optimization for the Rest of Us

When you have launched your website, whether it isfrom the list!Go to several of your competitors'
an eCommerce store or a corporate promotional site,websites and check out what keywords they are
you must have set certain goals regarding the quantityfocusing on by viewing the HTML source of the
of traffic you are expecting to have on your site. Ifpages.Now go to Yahoo! pay per click search
you did not pursue your goal with specific webmarketing site
promotional marketing strategies, chances are thereOverture, which has an excellent keyword selection
you are not very happy with the results you havetool. Google also has a similar tool located at
achieved so far. Although, there are numerous web
promotional methods available to your disposal,
optimizing your web pages for search engines is theGet the search phrases or terms that are popular
uncontested leader in this field. If you sell products orenough and fall into your criteria from above
services through your website, it is even more so formentioned lists.
you.Consider this. Out of various possibilities whichCheck where you stand with these keywords or key
include: going to a shop, calling a shop, etc. thephrases in main search engines. Find the needed tool
prospective buyer decided to search for the productfor this here.
online. Then she used certain key-phrase to make a
query on a search engine and then among other sites,
she chose yours to click in. As a seller this is the kindNow try to find whether you should use your
of visitors you need for your site! Search engines havekeyword in singular or plural, or which one of the two
more than twice the e-commerce conversion rate ofsimilar search terms or phrases are more desirable by
other traffic acquisition sources. You can get thesegoing to the following page:
results for your site with the help of search engine
optimization.What is Search Engine Optimization?SEORemember, studies show that conversion rate for
is a set of actions carried out with a webpage toplural words are in general higher than singular!
improve visibility of that webpage in search engines.Now that you have a number of keywords, cluster
The goal is to ensure top places in the search enginetwo to three of them for one single page. Remember,
results for a specific query.How important are theevery page of your site should be built surrounding one
search engines? Data show 81 percent of Internetsingle theme and focused on maximum two to three
users find the sites they're looking for through searchkeywords.
engines. Over 57% of Internet users search theOptimize the pages for keywordsPlace keywords in
Internet everyday. Up to 500 Million searches takeTitle tag, Meta description, Alt tags, Heading tags,
place in a day. 55% of all Internet purchases originateComment tags.Create contentNow develop
at a search engine as oppose to 9 percent frominformative content using these keywords. Use your
banners. These statistics are pretty convincing, butkey words in headlines and alt tag of the pictures.
surprisingly, according to only 7 percent of websitesMake sure that you don't over do it! If you stuff
are visible by search engines.Search Enginekeywords more than necessary for a normal text,
Optimization (SEO) can really bring amazing results.search engine can ban your site for keywords
Our page recently started to show on the first pagespamming. Here is a tool for checking density of
of Google for the search phrase "trade leads". Withinkeywords on a page. Maximum preferable density is
the last month we have noticed almost 30 percent3-5 percent.Submit to search toolsEffective promotion
increase of traffic to this page which is pretty muchof a website starts with submission of the site to
inline with the available statistics. If your optimizationvarious search tools available on the Internet. There
efforts started to bear fruits and you ended up on theare two different types of search tools - search
second or third page of Google search, you canengines and directories. Search engines index their
expect a dramatic increase of almost 5 times morelistings based on the information retrieved by their
traffic than before and after two months it can bespiders which crawl through the hyper links constantly
over 9 times! An upward move from 2nd and 3rdlooking for new websites. The directory listings are
pages to the much coveted first page will bring ancompiled by human editors from the URLs submitted
increase of around 30 percent. Along with the trafficto the directory. If your website is listed in the
the conversion rate - the quantity of actual purchasesdirectories you can be sure that the spiders of
- also goes up significantly.Your position within the firstdifferent search engines sooner or later will index your
page also makes a lot of difference. The topsite. That's why you should start submitting your
positioned web page in the sponsored - paidwebsite to the directories. The major directories are
advertisement - receives 50 percent of all clicks andGMOZ, Yahoo!, LookSmart, etc.Link popularityThe
first three top ranked web pages garner 60 percentquantity of links in different websites pointing to your
of all clicks.Once you have decided to go for searchsites is called link popularity of your website. The more
engine optimization, you next step is to figure out forpopular is your site the more links you get from other
which search engine you should work on optimizingwebsites and vice versa.Link popularity is one of the
your site. After all there are so many search engineskey factors that search engines consider in their
out there!If you look at the latest statistics available forsearch algorithm while indexing a website. What would
the month of November, 2005 compiled by Nielsenbe the rank of a website in a search result depends
NetRatings it, probably, won't be any surprise to youon its link popularity in a very big way. Work on getting
that Google at present has most search market share.as many backward links as possible, preferably from
There were 5.1 billion searches done in November. Outthe web pages with higher page ranking than
of 60 search engines monitored, Google had a shareyours.Track rankingSearch engine optimization requires
of 46.3 percent, Yahoo - 23.4 percent, MSN -11.4constant monitoring and updating. Don't forget that the
percent, AOL - 6.9 percent, Ask Jeeves with its othercompetitors are working relentlessly on achieving high
affiliations MyWay, Teoma, Iwon and search sites ofpositions. The search algorithms are also constantly
Excite Network has a combined share of around 6changing and improving. That's why every now and
percent, etc. This clearly shows that Google is thethen you should check out how your site is doing.Track
undisputed leader among search engines at thistrafficIf your work started to bring good results and
moment. That's why in your quest of getting moreyou are getting more traffic, but the visitors are not
traffic to your site, you have to emphasize on Google.taking expected actions, this means, you probably
Other key indicators which favor Google as wellhave selected wrong keywords. Start all over again
are:Google is most favored by business people - 82.9with keywords analysis.Search Engine Optimization is
percent of all business users make their queriesthe process of optimizing web pages for natural or
through Google.The Google users are more educated.organic - as they are also called - searches. Once you
They are more likely to have a college degree.Theare certain that you have done everything possible to
Google users are from higher income group.Asachieve maximum results in this sphere, you should
mentioned earlier search engine optimization is a set ofconsider pay per click marketing with Google, Yahoo
actions that you have to take surrounding your weband MSN. Effective web promotion requires a
pages. Here are the key steps of the process:Selectcombination of both of these two search engine
keywords for search engine rankingmarketing strategies.Nowshade Kabir is the CEO of
Make a list of keywords that you think buyers mightRusbiz.com, a global B2B Portal, which helps
use to search for products and services you sell.companies build web store, buy and sell products and
Use a Thesaurus to check synonyms of the wordsservices using eMarketplace, eCatalog and other
and phrases that you have chosen. You may comefeatures.
up with additional keywords. Eliminate all single words