According to a recent internet survey, 85% of the just over a billion internet users are using the internet for shopping. That means that once a business is online, it has the potential of reaching roughly 850 million shoppers. Hold on now… I can hear you all shouting at the same time: how can get in on this?!  With over a billion websites, the atmosphere is extremely competitive! Your success is strongly based on where you rank with internet real-estate called ‘search engine placing.’ The thing is, it is rare that someone clicks past the second page of Google or Yahoo, so if your website is not within the first page, you lost most of your anxious, fast-clicking internet shoppers. So how do you get on the first page of major engines like Google and Yahoo?

Search Engine Optimization is a tricky thing. I usually compare it to herbal medicine. Everybody is always worried about their health, and you have all kinds of people selling them, in all kinds of varieties and with all kinds of ‘cures.’ However in the end, if the herbal medicine happened to work, it is most likely because it contained a proven medicinal ingredient, or that your body naturally overcame your ailment with time. When compared to search engine optimization and the health of your website, keywords and key terms are the medicinal ingredients, and the way that you use them is the potentially ‘herbal’ part of it.

First of all, let me say that this is something that usually (A) a small regional-based company and (B) an experienced computer user can manage without SEO (search engine optimization) company. So as you get more experienced with web technologies and optimization procedures, you will be able to carry out an optimization program on your own. The reason why it is such a big industry is that there are literally hundreds of methods to get higher on the search engines, and therefore many different combinations of ‘solutions’. Some work better then others, and like herbal medicines, some don’t work at all. However, if you want proven results with little effort, let the experts do the work and hire an SEO company.

However, I always say that a knowledgeable website owner is a successful website owner, so if you are going to use an SEO company, please read on to get an overview of what to look for.

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A very important piece of advertising a website is getting your name out there - not only on search engines. So right after you launch your site its time to get started on your ad campaign. Business Cards, Letterheads and Email Signatures are important and well known. However, the best results come from constantly looking for 'hooks' - in newspaper articles about your company, in wikipedia, in weekly newsletters. Get your site out there, wherever you can. The percentage of successful web visits tends to be a lot higher in this type of advertising then search engine advertising.

The 80 / 20 Rule: 80 percent of visitors from local advertising techniques are potential customers and relevant visitors, where as 20 percent of visitors from search engine hits are potential customers and relevant visitors. However... with search engines you have the potential of reaching many more clients, so the pendulum swings both ways.

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DMOZ is a directory service that will help increase your page rank with search engines like Google, MSN and Yahoo!. It is also good to be listed in websites like JoeAnt. Link sharing in general is something that can be a really beneficial tool to increase search engine standings, so if you know of any local directories or any directories that focus on your trade – they would be good people to contact and ask for a link. In a lot of cases if you supply a reciprocal link on your page they will do it for free. Remember to include as many keywords as possible in the actual link text. This tactic works really well for Google (in a ‘score’ your website gets called a pagerank) but does not have the same influence on Yahoo and MSN standings. These engines are a bit more complicated and are more focussed on Ad-dollars. For instance if you advertise with Yahoo, you are going to get a better search placing with Yahoo in the ‘non-advertised’ section as well.

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In all cases the choice of, density and placement of keywords is crucial to increasing your search engine placing. Keywords are searched with different frequency, so it would be unlikely that someone would type in: “Jeremy Wallace's Hosting Company ”. However, it is very likely that someone would type in “hosting in canada .” Therefore, you want to make sure that you are targeting the right keywords that are going to get you the most exposure. Here is another example. I have a client who sells solat panels, and I told him that it would be ill-advised to target ‘solar systems ,’ because chances are you are going to get a lot of conflicting results and end up competing with the term ‘solar system’ (as in planets orbiting a star). Choose the words that provide a more direct key-word path to your particular pages, but still select popular key terms that people are going to associate with your product. This process of successfully selecting the right key terms, and moulding the content of your website to best reflect them is the guts behind ‘Search Engine Optimization,’ and usually requires a good deal of research and a constant re-evaluation of standings and content – as a stagnant website will quickly fall in the search engines list.

This also depends on the online competition in your industry. I used to work for an ecommerce company that sold glow sticks called ‘Glow Products.com’. Their main key term is “glow stick” which is searched roughly 20,000 times a month. So, that means that if they are #1 on the list, they will receive roughly 20,000 hits and if five percent are buyers, then they are selling 1000 glowstick packages a month. (This is why, when done correctly, the internet is by far the best storefront). However, getting to #1 on a term like that is not easy – it requires constant observation of your website and a dedication to tweaking key terms and watching internet trends. Glowproducts has 2 designers on staff and spends an additional $20,000 / year on internet marketing and optimization programs.

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1. Keyword / Key term analysis. There are many websites out there which provide detailed reports on which keywords are searched most often. From both Google and Overature. This will help you select the keywords which are going to bring you the most relevant visitors. (For instance, not high school kids doing a report on the Solar System, however, it is always good to educate people on renewable energy, even if it is by accident!)
    
   
2. Placement and usage of these keywords and terms:
   
   
1. Titles and URLS. The title and URL’s are the most important keyword sources. You will notice throughout the website I use file names like ‘search-engine-optimization-tricks-tips.php’… this is to enhance these particular key terms on each page (in this case Search Engine Optimization Tips and Tricks).
   
   
2. Meta-tags. Meta tags focus particular text in the HTML code for the search ‘bots’ that routinely come and check the page. You can adjust these tags to allow or disallow bots, tell them when to come back, focus keywords and give a description of your website. For maximized potential, include unique meta-tags on every page in your website, focussing on that particular page's content.
   
3. Keyword density. The density of the keyword in the text of your website is also an indicator for search engines of how ‘important’ it is. So another tactic is to carefully review all of your text, and optimize it to include important keywords in high density.
   
   
3. Internal Links and Navigation. It is important to have an easy to follow text-based navigation system. This will be even more beneficial if you include keyterms in the internal link navigation. So for example, if we put a miniature site map on the bottom of every page, in keyword-based text links, we can improve the quality of the keywords on search engines like google.
1. Site Maps. You can make a regular user-based one, or what is more prominent these days is an XML version of the site map that is uploaded directly to google.
   
   
4. Content and Article Pages. This tactic is especially useful on Yahoo. The search engine increases rank based on ‘importance’ of a website, which can be directly correlated to how much information the website has on the topic under discussion. So a new tactic is to create an ‘in the news’ section where you discuss recent events that are relevant to your subject matter. This you are already doing, so hopefully that will help increase your search engine standings – but make sure to keep these articles dense in keywords!

Usually my process is to design the website graphically and then after all of the content is in; a search engine optimization program is put into place to mould the website with the right key words. Like working out in the gym, with persistence, building of keyword content and density, a website can be moulded into a very ‘strong’ presence on the search engines. This may take a few weeks to begin once the website is launched, as there are lag times etc. You can speed up this process with the right tags and with search engine registries. But usually, one registers everything after the site is launched.

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There you have it! A quick little overview of what search engine optimization is all about. Websites are very dynamic, and it is important to keep them fresh and up to date in order to get the best results.

Good Luck Searching!

Written By
Jeremy Wallace