BlodgettVentures.com

SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO). Search Engine Optimization is the technology of generating the highest possible search page results for your website on major search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN.

When properly applied, it can lead to the generation of high traffic to your website and the creation of new leads and sales for your business.  It is the most cost-effective form of Internet marketing.  When your web pages are properly search engine friendly, they are considered "optimized."

Achieving top ranking is a long-term proposition, and it usually takes several months to reach high ranking. It is both a science and a skill, requiring special knowledge of how search engine ranking works as well as the application of consistent keyword and content-development strategies.

There are several steps to the Search Engine Optimization process.
 
1.    Selecting the right keywords

This is the most important step and can easily be the reason for your ranking ahead or ranking below your watch sites (the competition).   Words or phrases must be related to your website and they must be the words or phrases people will search for on the Internet.   

2.    Analyze the competition

This is the process of determining who the competition is; in other words, these are the sites that show up above your page.  There are several methods of determining this, including finding out how effectively the competition has used their keywords.  

3.    Page creation and optimization

When your website is created there are various codes, tags, and text placement within the pages that you can’t see.  The web designer must make sure the correct keywords or phrases are in the right places.  If these keywords are incorrectly placed, search engines may not index your site or the keywords may be considered Spam and your site will be banned.

4.    Content is Critical

The content of your web pages must be informative and easily readable.  Good content, written for the Web, will ensure that your page appeals to your potential customers as well as the search engines.  A badly written page may get good ranking on search engines, but a potential customer will move away from your site with the same speed they came in.

5.    Link Building

It is desirable to link to other websites and for them to link back to you (called "back links"). If the theme or content of the other sites with which you are sharing links is related to yours, it will increase your ranking with the search engines.  It's important that you don't misuse back links, as the search engines will penalize you for links that have no relevance.

6.    Submitting to Search Engines

After your website is created the web designer should submit your site to at least Google; and preferably other search engines such as Yahoo and MSN.  


7.    Submitting to Directories

Search Engines consider web (directories) as expert documents.  A presence in popular directories such as DMOZ, Yahoo!  World Wide Index, and Microsoft Central can get your web pages better ranking on search engines. This is not nearly as important as your Google listing, however.


8.    Maintenance

Search Engine Optimization is a continuous process.  Popular Search Engines keep making changes to the way they rank web pages.  It is imperative that web pages are continually optimized based on the current keyword search activity to achieve high ranks.  Rankings should be measured each month, and pages re-optimized that drop in rank.  The web pages are then re-submitted to the search engines.  


9.    Tracking

The web designer uses a file analysis program to find out which keywords bring in the most visitors to your pages and uses this information to optimize your pages better for the new terms and search engines.