Search engine optimization is all about how to turn your web pages to show up in the front. It is very competitive out there. If you are just starting, then you are already a late comer. But late comers can also succeed, albeit with a lot of hard work. We will now talk about the important things that you will have to perform. There are two things to do. One is called on site optimization where all the work will be done on the site itself.
The other one is called off-site optimization which
means that you will need to do it on other people's website, like
getting links from them. Optimization is not a one time process, but a
long term exercise. You will need to do it as long as your web site
needs visitors (the free kind). In the internet, more visitors mean more
buyers. No visitors mean time to close shop! We will now elaborate
on things that you have to do. Before anything, you will need to be
indexed by the major search engines. It doesn't happen automatically
either. You really need a lot of effort. Here are some tips.
Tip 1: Get a link from an existing site
Links are very important for high rankings on Google, Yahoo and
MSN. The more (quality) links you have, the higher your page ranks.
It used to be easy to get free links from search directories, but since
most of them have converted to pay-for-links in order to survive,
getting these links should not be easy anymore. You should spend
more time using other methods. One easy way to get a link to your
website is to join a forum. Choose forums site that are related to the
topic of your website theme. By just posting relevant comments at
these sites, you will be allowed to put a one way link back to your site.
This way, you add value to your site and get a free link back. Others
who read your comment might click on your link just to see what you
have on your site. However, do not spam forum sites with worthless
comments, for they may reflect badly on you. Then again, not all
forums allow your link to be spider by the search engines. They have
some tags like the 'no follow' tag that helps them to retain their own
page rank. More of it later.
Tip 2: Create an external blog
Put up a blog and create useful contents. Then put a link back to your
site. As Google like blogs, it will quickly index them and along the way,
it will also find your website. In this way, you could get your website
indexed in less than a week. Some in less than forty eight hours!
Tip 3: Get as many links as you can
If you have many other website linking to yours, then the search
engines will find you and give you good rankings in heir search
results (SERPs). The trick then is to get as many websites linking to
you as soon as possible. But do not get links all of a sudden as the
search engines might think that you are paying for those links. They
abhorred paid links, and you might be relegated to their suspect's list.
1. Which type of link should you go for?
There are various types of links One-way, Two-way and Three-way
links. Which type should you go for then?
One way link is a simple link from one website to the other. If your
site is offering a free computer program, then other sites might want
to put a one way link to your site to show their visitors that there is a
free program for them to download. So giving away something useful
for free is a sure way of getting plenty of one way links. The other
method is to put up useful contents like articles and free e-books.
You get a reciprocal link if you link to a website and that website links
back to your website. You normally write to their webmaster and
request a link back. Preferably, put a link to their site first so that the
other guy will sense your goodwill and out of courtesy, they might
give you a link. Reciprocal links used to be popular but it seems that
search engines are giving less relevance to them now. You also have
to be careful as to who to link to as there is such a term as bad
company and 'link farms' that will adversely affect your ranking if
your site is linked to them.
As reciprocal links are getting out of favor, someone invented the
three way links. Here is how it works. Website A links to website B,
website B links to website C, website C links back to website A. For
all intents, there is only one way links, so the search engines might
think that the links are natural and not cooked up. However, as
search technologies are improving all the time, it is only a matter of
time before this ruse is found out and the search engines relegate
less relevance to such links.