05 November 2013

Growing Your Audience With Search Engine Optimization

By Sara Ezan


Improving the ability of your website or blog to be found is what search engine optimization is all about, but it can still be a pretty confusing concept for many people out there. Knowing how to correctly optimize pages is an acquired skill, and here are a few tips you can use to develop it.

When optimizing your site for keyword phrases, rather than single words, pay attention to keyword proximity. It is best if your keywords appear together, rather than being separated by other terms. This method increases the weight given to searches for that phrase, without detracting from searches for the individual terms.

When optimizing your search engine results be sure to use any variation of the word possible, including misspellings. The larger the variety in your meta-tags the more likely it is that your website will be ranked high in a given search. As an example, if "traveling" is your keyword, include "traveling" in addition to the European spelling of "travelling."

There are many virtues in the field of Search Engine Optimization, and patience is the biggest one. When trafficking your site, especially if you're a do-it-yourself businessperson, you have to realize that it takes time to get your business ranked up at the top. Results may take months, but you'll have to keep working in the meantime.

Make sure to have links that allow visitors to favorite your website on social networking sites. Word of mouth can be a significant asset to your website. Every time a person likes your site on a social network site, it becomes more popular and easier to find on search engines.

To search engine optimize your website, don't include more than 150 internal linking hyperlinks on your home page. Too many internal links on one page can dilute a web page's search engine rank. Huge numbers of links also make it hard for visitors to find the information that they need quickly.

Pictures and graphics are great for the visual aspect of your web page. Unfortunately, search engines cannot interpret them (unless a user is doing a specific image search). If you have an awesome image, make sure you have an awesome, descriptive text caption to go with it. If you are familiar with HTML, use an "ALT" tag for this: it will allow you to write a lengthy description that you can fill with search-engine-friendly keywords.

For search engine optimization, remember to carefully and thoroughly research exactly what keywords you are going to put on your website. Having strong, effective keywords that relate well to your content is the best way to draw new visitors to your site, as it will help you rank higher in search engines.

As you can see from the article above, there isn't anything that's overly complicated about the process. It's basically just stuff that you didn't yet know and didn't really think to check for. So, to make sure your site is found, just remember to employ the SEO tips and tricks that you've read above.