Search engine optimization - the process of tweaking webpages to get better rankings on the search engine results pages - is not just a matter for the most technologically-savvy webmasters. There are simple tips that any website owner can use to dramatically improve their website's search engine performance. This article shares just a few of them.
Write and submit articles to article directories. Not only will this increase your exposure and give you multiple platforms to express your expertise in your field, the link to your site in the author resource box will result in higher search engine rankings for your site. If someone uses your article from a directory, that's even better.
Don't over-stuff your site with keywords as this can be used against you. The search engines look for words located primarily in content. however, having an unnatural amount of the same keywords in the content of your site can actually work to your disadvantage because it will send up a "red flag" to search results to skip as it seems fishy.
Adding fresh content to your site regularly is a great way to improve your search engine rankings. This is because fresh and new content makes your site appear more relevant to search engines. Having new content also makes your site seem more relevant to users, which will increase the chances of people linking to it, which will also improve your search engine rankings.
Use alt tags for images and span element titles to your advantage. Search engines look at a site's code, not what is actually visible to a user, so if your keyword is "cat" and there is a picture of a calico cat on your site, using an alt tag of "a calico cat" for the image will expose the search engine to your keyword even if the user never sees it. The title of a span element works in the same way.
To optimize a website for search engines, it can sometimes, be helpful to modify the website content. By frequently incorporating phrases and words that oftentimes, tend to be entered as search terms into the content of a website, the site designers can often help to increase the traffic to that particular site.
One way to enhance your standing in website search rankings is to improve the time it takes your website to load. Search engines are looking to deliver the best possible experience to their searchers and now include load time into their search ranking protocols. Slow loading sites get lost in the mix when searchers get impatient waiting for sites to load. Explore ways to optimize your loading process with solutions like compressed images, limited use of Flash animations and relocating JavaScript outside your HTML code.
Some people suggest adding keywords to a website's comment tags will increase their prominence. Instead, you should concentrate on enhancing the content of your site.
Using strong keywords can be beneficial when it comes to search engine optimization. Using keywords most relevant to your business or product will drive it to the top of different search engines, and help drive people to your site. Using too many keywords may flag you as a spammer so keep it to a few strong relevant keywords. For more tips, please check out: http://www.justinmonkseo.com/coeur-d-alene
Stay ethical. Many websites use what is called "Black Hat" tactics, meaning they use unethical practices to hop their sites up on search lists. These include keyword stuffing, "Doorway pages", and many others. Stay away from these, because if a search engine realizes you are using them, they will likely ban your site from their pages.
It should go without saying that one of the keys to search engine optimization is to promote your website. Make great use of all the social networking tools at your disposal and don't forget to set up a newsletter and RSS feeds to give your visitors new reasons to keep coming back for more.
When you bid on keywords in a pay-per-click (PPC) affiliate marketing program, remember that cheaper is almost always better. Online customers are a fickle often, and it is impossible to guarantee success by buying expensive ads. It is much better to spread your budget out across lots and lots of cheap ads. More ads give you more chances to make a sale and recoup your advertising costs.
Do not automatically redirect users to another site. Search engines see this as a malicious practice. Even if you honestly want to connect users to a new domain, it will still look as though you are trying to cheat the search engine. Instead, provide links to the new content, and encourage visitors to click through to the main webpage.
Never use "hidden" links that visitors cannot see. These links are a holdover from the very early days of search engine optimization, when search engine crawlers would blindly follow the links and improve a website's ranking accordingly. Today search engines are smart enough to avoid hidden links, and some will even penalize you if they find them on your website.
Using a specific keyword too often will actually count against you if you are trying to maximize the frequency of search hits. Search engines will be looking for keywords that are inserted in natural language. Therefore, you will have to not only use your keyword frequently, but the content must make sense.
If you have a competitor whose SEO performance you would like to emulate, find out how many visitors the competitor's site draws from the search engine results pages. If you intend to combat the competitor head-to-head, this gives you a goal for your own efforts. If you simply want to keep pace with the pack, you can use the competitor's traffic as a yardstick
Hopefully this article has illustrated that SEO is not a mysterious process set aside for the technologically illuminated ones of the online world. Good SEO is not a matter of arcane practices or total devotion; a webmaster at any level of technical know-how can easily implement basic SEO tactics and see a dramatic improvement in search engine performance.