***************************************************************************************************************************************** What is SEO? / SEO is the art or science of gaining top search engine placement for relevant keyword phrases through making search engines believe your site is more relevant than your competition’s websites. ________________________________________________________________________________________________$ How SEO Works / This is an extremely brief introduction to SEO. It aims to inform you what SEO is, but not to teach you how to become an SEO expert. Much of the SEO process is just hard work and learning from your errors. If you do your own SEO you will still likely want to chat in SEO forums and read books on the topic before starting. Many of the print books can go quickly out of date, but if you ask around there will likely be at least a couple good guides which are commonly recommended. ________________________________________________________________________________________________$ What are Keywords? / Keywords are terms or (more often) phrases you would expect someone to search for to find your website. With SEO you pick your keywords and create pages focused on them. You can only focus each page on a specific keyword phrase or few specific keywords. One of the best tricks to SEO is to gain traffic using many pages focused on specific terms vice focusing on broad single word terms. Specific terms are usually easier to rank well for and often have a higher conversion rate (since a longer query is often associated with greater searcher intent). ________________________________________________________________________________________________$ Why SEO is so important? ( If you have just started your online business then it is very necessary that you get it search engine optimized. The big reality is that the internet has become a very cut-throat market place. There are almost thousands of web sites that are trying to get the attention of different visitors. Most of the sites are yet found from search engines according to many specialists and the issue is only nearly ten sites come in the first page if you enter a relevant keyword. If your site is in the second page and not in the first page for that particular keyword then it does not get the traffic that it requires for becoming successful. Hence you must opt for SEO which is an efficient service, which helps your site accomplish top ranking at different search engines such as Google and Yahoo. Hence SEO has huge importance in getting success in online business. It is only search engine optimization that makes your site visible in online business. It also explains why your site needs SEO. It is an ultimate need. Other reasons behind why is SEO important are many. Almost 91% of internet users make use of search engines for navigating the web. Nearly 85% of search engine users neglect past the first forty results. 8 out of 10 searches are done by many people from the topmost search engines. 8 out of 10 searches are done from search engines such as Bing, Google and Yahoo. Nearly 77% of people who use internet make use of search engines very often as compared to other online media as a leading tool to find out different web links, e-mail links and surpassing banner ads. Great SEO tips for your site If you want to successfully run your SEO campaign then you need to follow SEO tips. To get the traffic for your website and get the profits in your online website marketing business, you need to follow a few easy to follow search engine optimization tips that are given below. You need to do a keywords research. It is one of the crucial steps in SEO campaign before you start. You need to completely research all of the keywords you wish to make use of. It makes a great difference in your stragety. Do not commit the mistake of using the similar Meta tags for each page. Meta tags must be perfect for every page. Even, ensure to make use of the keywords and write an effective title. The current trend favors ethical SEO; hence you need to create quality and unique content for different web pages so that users can easily navigate through them. You should avoid having low quality links. Rather than obtaining links from link farms, you should research status of those sites before getting links from them. You can use Alexa ranks to know the status of the website. It is the best way to check the popularity of the site and even the page rank of the site. Never overdo reciprocal links as reciprocal linking is valuable only if done in small number and if the links are related to your site. Even, ensure to have a diverse set of links including articles, blogs, forums and social media bookmarking. Never use the links with the similar anchor text. There are many search engines that do not like links, which make use of the similar anchor text. You need to make website updates on regular basis. If you do not update your website regularly then it is of no use. You need to update latest news, current information and fresh content to your site on regular basis. Updating your site regularly is one of the best ways of catching the eye of search engine robots. You should look for your competitors. It is always best to know what other website owners doing on their site and what they are doing to get good quality links. You should design your site SEO friendly. You do not need to follow a set SEO strategy while designing a website. You should avoid heavy flash, plenty of graphics, as search engine robots crawl text but do not crawl images. The keys of getting success in online business is to make good meta tags for web pages and insert fresh and helpful content. If you are not designing your site and hiring somebody else to do that work then you need to search for an expert SEO and website designer. Make use of text links rather than images. Text links have great importance while making use of JavaScript as spiders do not follow JavaScript. You need to keep localization in your mind. Many advantages are there of reaching out to the local audience. Apart from getting local customers, including region-based keyword phrases will surely help you as you need to face less competition for that particular keyword. ) ________________________________________________________________________________________________$ Using the Correct Domain Name / Acquiring links is important to rank well for competitive terms. When possible you want the links pointing at you to use your keywords in them. Other sites (especially directories) are more inclined to link to you with your keywords in the link text if they are also in your official site name or domain name. It is usually a good idea to use your keywords in your domain name when possible. ________________________________________________________________________________________________$ SEO Feedback Time Frame / When you search a search engine you are not searching the web. You are searching their cache of the web. It takes search engines some finite amount of time to find and properly index new links and pages. If you are new to SEO (or are just beginning to do SEO on your website) it may take up to six months or more to gain a top ranking for a competitive phrase. If you work hard enough you can usually rank well for less competitive phrases in as little as a couple months. ________________________________________________________________________________________________$ Gaining Top Rankings can take a Long Time / Some of your biggest competitors have likely been around for a long time and have many links built up over time. You can view their links by: Searching Yahoo! for linkdomain:www.CompetingWebsite.com ; Searching Google for link:www.CompetingWebsite.com ; Yahoo! usually shows more links to your site than Google does, and each search engine will likely show some links the other is not showing; Search engines know of and evaluate many more links than they show using a backlink check. Even though all links do not display, checking backlink can help you estimate the popularity of a site. ________________________________________________________________________________________________$ How to Build Links / Register your site in major directories such as the Yahoo! Directory and DMOZ. I also register my clients websites in many of the smaller directories and niche specific directories. Search engines often do not count links that go through redirects, so before spending money on a listing you will want to check if the directories provide static links. Business.com and the Yahoo! Directory are two directories which provide static links and show tracking URLs in the status bar when you hover over the links. Most other directories that show tracking URLs do not provide links that are evaluated by search engines. Write press releases and articles and syndicate them on other sites. Link back to your site (using your keywords when possible) in the article signature block. Ask friends, product manufacturers, product distributors, and other business partners to link to your site. Sponsor sites and get them to link to you. Buy advertising from related websites. ________________________________________________________________________________________________$ How Much Should SEO Cost? / Quality SEO is time-consuming and usually requires an investment of at least 4 figures if you are paying someone else to do your SEO for you. You may be able to find a cheaper SEO service if you are in a niche field and have your keywords in the domain name. I would suggest setting aside at least a thousand or few thousand dollars for SEO if you are hiring an SEO. Some SEO steps are time-consuming and expensive. Long-term link building requires significant expense in both time and money. The cost of effective SEO can sometimes be as low as $500 to $1,000 and it can cost $10,000 a moth depending on how niche or competitive your field is. The price of SEO is typically market driven. Niche fields do not cost much, but if you are in a business that can make thousands of dollars per day then you should expect to be paying thousands of dollars per month. It may be worth it to hire someone in-house to do SEO. If you do your own SEO services make sure you account for the time you spend when figuring out how much it is costing you.