Friday, November 15, 2013

Growing Your Audience With Search Engine Optimization

By Margene Woliver


Search engine optimization is often explained in complex terminology when it is simply a way of increasing your website's chances of ranking highly by manipulating your web content to include the words that your target audience might use to find your website. This article seeks to simplify the explanations so that search engine optimization becomes less intimidating.

Search engine optimization is perhaps one of the greatest marketing tools to come about online, but without proper article submissions it won't work out to your liking. That is why it's imperative to search and find the best article directories to submit your hard earned work and watch the numbers start to add up.

To make your website more "crawl-able" for search engines, you should ensure that your website has a complete site map. If you do not know how to make one, you can find free site map generating tools online. Making your site more search engine friendly will give you a better chance of increasing your site's rankings.

When you are deciding what phrases to use throughout your site, use this quick Google test to see if your page has a chance of being a "top result." Search each of your potential key-phrases (in quotation marks) individually. Choose the key-phrase that retrieves the least amount of results. This way, you will have less competition within your search result pool.

One of the easiest ways to optimize your presence in search engine results is to register with The Open Directory Project, or the "DMOZ." When you register, you have a chance of showing up higher in user results, since websites like Google and AOL use the DMOZ to strengthen their database.

Use your strongest keywords in your site's name, in the sub-folders, and in the page names. This will help your site, as well as individual pages, rank more strongly. Search engines will give relevant pages high rank, and you can link those pages to others in your site. All of this strengthens your entire site and helps it to rank.

Courting media attention for your website can be a powerful tool to optimize its search engine performance. You don't need to seek out national or international press. Local and industry-specific media are more likely to pay attention anyway - and may even give you better results. If your site is mentioned and linked by trusted media sites the effect with search engines will be significant.

Whenever it is possible, use your keywords in your URL. Search engines pick up on keywords that are placed in the URL. Instead of using numbers or text in article URLs, try to use a CMS that will use real words. These should be the keywords that readers will, most likely, search for.

If you are going to use the same article in more than one place, be sure that you don't just post exactly the same content each time. Search engines will view this as duplicate content, which will hurt your search ranking. Tweak the article a bit each time you post it somewhere.

Smart search engine optimization helps websites to improve their visibility when certain keywords are searched for. With a varied and methodical approach, over time, you (or your webmaster) can get your site to climb up the rankings. It is a crucial element of modern business practice.




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