SEO online World

The whole online world is talking about search engine optimization (SEO). The content on your site needs to be SEO'd; the articles that you write or have written to create links needs to be SEO'd; even your social networking content, videos and blog entries need to be SEO'd. It's definitely true; they do. So, let's explore the concepts encapsulated by the terms "search engine optimization".

What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?

SEO is a generic term for the methods used to make your online content shine well with the major (and minor) search engines. You see, the vast majority of people surf online to gain information. Not for shopping, not for porn - for information. For that reason, major search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN have algorithms which determine which of the hundreds of millions of webpages most closely present the information searched for by any given surfer at any given time.

For example, if you enter a search for "healthy plants for humans to eat" in the MSN search box, it is the job of the fine folks at MSN to give you back relevant search results. You wouldn't be pleased if when you entered "healthy plants for humans to eat", it came back with results about the Chinese mistreating the Tibetans. Displeased, you would use a different search engine. For that reason, MSN has to have a way to scan the entire Internet for relevant information every time any individual enters a given search.

The way that they do it is by sending out what are called "spiders". Search engine electronic spiders (algorithms) "crawl" the web at incredible speeds and present you as a searcher with fresh, accurate and concise information about what you are searching for.

When you employ search engine optimization techniques, you are putting out spider bait!

So, how do I create good spider bait?
It's not that hard. You want to put out fresh, accurate and concise information - remember? So, you have to first discern exactly what you're going to promote and who you are going to promote it to. The people that you are going to promote your product or service to are groups of people who share a common need for the same information. They are called "niches". One niche is the group of people who are searching for information about healthy plants to eat. Another niche may be searching for ways to end the suffering in Tibet at the hands of the Chinese.

As an Internet marketer, it is your job to target specific niches with specific information that you believe will entice them to visit your site. You want to focus your material on specific "keywords" or "keyword phrases". In the above example "healthy plants for humans to eat" is a keyword phrase. It is a phrase, that you as a marketer, are willing to bet that your niche will enter as a search topic on a major search engine. The keywords and keyword phrases that you choose are up to you. You can dictate them to the letter.

What is keyword saturation?

Good question. Keyword saturation rates are simply the amount of times a given keyword phrase appears in a given amount of content. For instance, if you have a 600 word article and you repeat the same keyword (singular) in that article 6 times, you will produce a keyword saturation rate of 1%. The amount of keyword saturation that is best is debatable. Some people say 3%, some say 6%. One thing is sure: you don't want to flood your content with keywords. The spiders recognize this and label it as spamming. They don't like it when you try to overfeed them and they will punish you with the bite of low rankings.

In a nutshell, you have to experiment with niches, relevant keywords, keyword phrases and keyword saturation rates. You have to have information to present to surfers that is concise, accurate and fresh. You have to determine your specific recipe for optimizing your content for search engine rankings. You the search engines to return your content on the first page of their results that they give to surfers. If you are page 2 or less, you are not going to get very many hits at all.

So, to summarize, you need to provide the world with great information about the keywords of your choosing. You need to target niches and give them what they desire (relevant information). When they read the information that you give them, they will be exposed to your marketing techniques (that's several other articles!). At that point, it is possible to convert a visitor into a sale. That is where you make sweet cash! That's the name of the game!

Backlinks

Back links are the key to wealth from your website. When submitting links to directories make sure that you plan to submit farther than your first page. If your website provides great quality content then you have convinced the directories that you know what you are doing.

Every time a back link is created you are building up your sites momentum and fortune. A back link is a trustworthy way that a search engine can tell that your website provides quality content. After submitting your articles into a directory you have confirmed a deep link inside your website as you are letting the search engines know that there is more to your site than the first page.

In order to generate successful traffic you will need to have your content in order and ready for the world to see. Make sure you have the proper keyword density throughout your articles and that proper grammar has been used. If all has been followed through your directory will be another helpful guest in your group of helpers, as they will do much more than show off your work, they will help your deep links get established.

Once your back links are in place from a reliable source then you are on your way to great search engine optimization. However these are not the only ways back links can help users with their domain. Back links will enable other viewers to see that you are a reliable source and that your link is on another website that they view which creates the feeling that you are someone they know they can trust. If you have the wants from the users then you have successfully became popular, and popularity is what search engine optimization is all about.
If you had the option to put all your back links onto one website or to have multiple back links put onto multiple sites you would most likely go with the latter. The more trustworthy domains linking back to yours will make your site to be very trustworthy and instead of only having one trustworthy website linking back to your domain you will have multiple. The reason search engines take priority in this is simply because the more your name is out there, then the more popular you are, and popularity is the only way to be good in search engines. Go out there and create back links and you are surely to succeed.

Link Popularity

WHAT DOES LINK POPULARITY MEAN TO YOU?
When a fellow website owner decides to add a link to your site from one of his pages, what he is actually doing is validating the fact that the content in your site is relevant to the content in his site. It is also an acknowledgment from him that his site visitors should also be visiting your site to gather even more information regarding whatever subject matter it is that both of you have designed a website for.

THREE ELEMENTS THAT ALL INCOMING LINKS FROM OTHER SITES SHOULD HAVE
Because you have to make sure that the search engine spiders will rank you higher if they find sites that are as relevant to your main topics as you are, you should always make sure that your incoming links from other sites include these important elements:

1. QUANTITY
Most search engines such as Google and Yahoo! will not even allow a website to be submitted unless it has at least one or two relevant links to it before the submission process can be completed. You have to be sure to have at least ten really good and content heavy sites that share the same topics and subject matter that every page on your site also contains.

Google likes to see a lot of relevant links to your site coming from larger and more established sites before they will even consider giving you a top twenty placement in their page rankings. A good way to get a sizable amount of links set up for your site is by doing an intensive search on Google by entering the keyword phrase that describes your website perfectly. Once you do that, go to the top thirty sites that you find and examine each site thoroughly before you e-mail the webmaster at each individual site to ask them if they would link your site with theirs.

Most websites encourage new site owners to link to them by having a "Link Your Site" page on one of their main category pages. Just go to each site's navigation bar to look for it, and if that fails, go to the "Contact Us" page and kindly request a link to be set up between you and the site that you feel will benefit your web pages by being associated with yours.
2. RELEVANCE OF THE INCOMING LINK
If your website happens to be about the drivers of NASCAR, then you better not link your web pages that deal with that subject with a site that is all about daytime soap opera. For one thing, your site visitors will be none too pleased to be driven to a site that never had any intention of going to, and the search engine will take you down ten pegs as far as your page ranking is concerned because of the irrelevancy of that particular site.

You have to make sure that ALL of your incoming and outgoing links have the highest degree of relevancy to your own web site, or you really will be penalized by Google and Yahoo!, which will result in the ultimate failure of your SEO campaign.

3. A HIGH DEGREE OF QUALITY MUST COME FROM YOUR INCOMING LINKS
One of the ways that Google gages site quality is by the time frame of when the website was first submitted for approval by Google. For example, if a site was approved by Google in 2001, that site would be looked on as being of higher quality than a site that was approved by Google in 2003. So if you can find ten sites that were formed before the year 2000 and they have a high degree of relevance to your particular site, those are the ones you should pursue to link your site to.

Google is the only search engine that feels that way, however, so you should also examine the other elements that Yahoo! and MSN believe must be contained in your site to distinguish it as being of high quality. The best thing that will distinguish your site as being of good quality is by having relevant and detailed information in all of your text content.

By this, I mean you must have links in your web pages articles to other sites or web pages that will give the web reader a more descriptive analysis of the subject or topic you are discussing in your web content or blog content. You must also have descriptive text images for your photos or pictures on all of your pages as well.

As long as you follow these rules, any website owner will achieve success through great link popularity.