Basics of Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization, also known as SEO, is the process of increasing the amount of visitors to a Web site by ranking high in the search results of a search engine. The higher a Web site ranks in the results of a search, the more traffic is driven to that Web site.

What is the difference between “organic” search listing and paid listing?

An “organic” search engine listing is a free listing of a site, usually found by a search engine’s spider and then ranked by relevancy according to the search engine’s methodology. In contrast, a paid listing is ranked according to how much an advertiser is willing to spend.

Do’s and Don’ts of SEO

The Do’s:

Do a thorough analysis of all your keywords and key phrases for your site, on the products or services that you are trying to promote through web.

Make sure you write a short descriptive title tag of what each page of your site is all about, and make sure they are all different. Search engines use the information contained in that title tag, compare them to the text on that page and rank it accordingly.

Provide relevent description, keywords for home page as well as internal pages

Provide ALT tags for all the images in your website. This will enhance your listing in the search engines  your key

Develop the content on your page using the same keywords contained in your title tag.

Having a well-designed sitemap will ensure that each page of your site gets properly indexed by Google and the other search engines.

The Don’ts:

Don’t make your site entirely in Flash (or if you do, make sure to develop a html version of it)
The majority of search engines have problems crawling the links and text in flash objects.

Don’t make your site in frames.
The search engines only see the first page of the site and can’t crawl deep into your website.
As content is the king in getting search engine listing, so it is advised that you should all your contents crwaled by the search engines robots.

Submit your website once to the search engines and then wait for at least six weeks! Don’t use software that automatically submits your sites on a weekly or monthly basis, since it might penalize you in the long run.

Courtesy: Mithu Sarkar