SEO Basics

SEO, Search Engine Optimization, is how websites alter their content to improve ranking on search engines; e.g., Google, Yahoo, Bing. The higher a website ranks on a search--ideally within the first five results--the more website traffic. This is often the difference between commercial success and failure. SEO alters a website's webpages by modifying HTML, Hyper Text Mark-up Language, external and internal links, and content to improve the website's search rank.

Crawlers:
To understand SEO it is important to know how search engines indentify and process webpage information. Search engines use software "crawlers", sometimes called spiders or robots, that identify webpage content according to a specific algorithm. The algorithm is unique to a specific Search Engine; i.e., Google's algorithm is different from Yahoo's. The algorithm determines what part of the webpage is indexed by the crawler. Indexing occurs when the crawler copies webpage information and that is then used to identify the page during a search. Knowing what crawlers identify is the key to effective optimization.

Where and What:
There are several areas on the individual webpage that can be optimized for ranking. Inserting search specific words between common HTML tags: <head></head>, <h1></h1>, <meta>
</meta>, and <title></title>. Text content can be altered to include specific words and phrases that can increase ranking. If a webmaster wanted to increase ranking for the search "Montana trout fishing" content would be altered so Montana trout fishing was made as prominent as possible in the content's text and HTML. Internal and External links will increase rank. Internal links to a video or picture gallery is a great technique to optimize rank. In our example, Videos and pictures of big trout and happy Montana fishermen will increase search engine visibility for our example web master. Google particularly rewards external links to other relevant websites.

If our example webmaster who wants to improve Google visibility he can request links from The Society of Montana Trout Fishermen and The Montana Fish and Wildlife Association.

Best and Worst Practices:
Understanding how search engines collect, rank, and utilize web content is the key to optimization. The best way to optimize a website is using good design and organization that adheres to SEO guidelines. SEO will not get the best results if the site has broken links, poor word choice, and unorganized content. Coupled with good design SEO is a powerful tool for Search Engine success.

0 members like this

Comment

You need to be a member of DealerELITE.net to add comments!

Join DealerELITE.net

Comment by Kenny Jackson on May 5, 2012 at 2:55pm: Thanks for the article

Kenny J.