With millions of websites competing with each other to find space in the top listings of search engines (SE), the search engine optimization process is fast gaining importance. This is a process of making the website "search engine friendly" so as to enable your website to be ranked high in search results. In other words, we make the website design and content as easy as possible for the search engine to realize that your web site is an important match.
The common belief among people, who are new to the field of SE's, is that the rankings of the website involve human aspect, whereas the fact is that it is purely an automated process. There are more than 4 billion web pages indexed by Google. It is humanly impossible to maintain that large volume; therefore, SE's employ automated computer programs. These computer programs, known as "SE spiders" automatically look at each website and methodically determine the search terms under which the website will appear.
Although the SEO process is unformulated, many of its aspects are well defined and involve the website design and content, its marketing strategy and popularity. There are many steps involved in the process of SEO optimization and the following is a general overview of this process in order to understand the basic aspects.
Analysis of the Keyword
The first aspect is to determine the phraSE's and the keywords to be optimized in the website. Study your products or services and enter the mind of the potential visitor or customer to your website. In order to decide what your keywords and phraSE's might be, find out what search terms a customer would be most likely to type in the search box. There are tools out there that help you pick your keywords. Wordtracker ™ is one of the most widely used keyword search tools. I use the keyword search tool that comes with my Site Build It! ™ web site by clicking on the link in the 'about the author' section of this article to find out more. Once you have picked and reviewed your keywords, your goal should be to include them in your website design and content.
Optimization as the basis for Design
Incorporate optimization from the very beginning when you build your website. This will make SE optimization more effective as compared to squeezing in optimization after you've built a site. If the website design and content is straight forward HTML and does not have frame, flash, hidden links in animation or dropdown menus it will be more SE friendly. If your website is SE friendly it will be easily indexed by the SE spider.
Website Content
The SE's can only identify and interpret text in the web site. Graphs, pictures and designs are not identified by the SE spider; therefore, include a lot of text in your web site design and content. This will not only help SE optimization, but people will also appreciate and link to your website if it has plenty of information and depth.
Optimize Coding
SEO goes into the coding of your website which is beyond the web site design and content. When you build a web site you can describe the pictures and make the heading tags very HTML specific which will make your code more visible to SE's and optimize your web site. This sort of web site popularity is termed 'behind the scene optimization.'
Popularity of Links
Another important aspect of SE optimization is the number of other sites which have links to your website. SE's keep track of your web site links with other sites while ranking your web site. As a result, you should go into deals to share links with quality web sites and other people with similar content.
