Why Should Your Site be Search Engine Optimized?

A web site is developed and hosted to bring revenue to the organization. A website which has a good layout and updated information always attracts visitors. The visitors visit a site that is displayed in the first page of the search engine. For this to happen, the website has to be optimized by the search engine.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can be defined as the process of improving the flow of traffic to the website. In brief, it ensures that the web pages are accessible to search engines. Search Engine Optimization targets the different kinds of searches like image search, local search and industry–specific vertical search

The internet users use the search engines to find the websites. If the website has to be listed by the search engine, it has to be optimized. Optimization of the web sites will ensure that there is a good flow of visitors to the website. There are sites which may not be listed at all. The reason behind it is that they fail to understand the functioning of the search engine. The major commercial search engines are MSN, Ask Jeeves, Yahoo and Google. If the web site is not found by these search engines, then there is a possibility that the web site is losing out on a lot of opportunities. You should be aware that search engines are the primary method of navigation and that it would help in increasing the business of the organization.

There are two types of search engines - crawler based search engine and human powered directory. The crawler based search engine creates the listing automatically. In this type of search engine the robots crawl in the web and bring out the relevant results that were searched by the visitors. The advantage of the crawler based search engines are that, if the contents of the website are updated, the crawlers will eventually find these changes all by itself. Keep in mind that these changes can affect the listings of the web site. An example of crawler based search engine is Google. These search engines help in site ratings. There is another search engine known as human –powered directory. Here the site ratings depend on human beings for its ratings. A short description of the website is submitted for review to the directory by the editor. Changes made on the web pages may have no effect on the listing. The website is displayed when the search query checks out for matches that are given in the description. One of the examples of the Human-powered Directory is Open Directory.

The search engine optimization is divided into three categories. They are

1. Key word optimization

2. Web page optimization ( the web pages can be optimized for selected keywords)

3. Inbound links to the web pages or off-site factors.

Keywords are the phrases or the words that the users type in the search box of the search engine to conduct a query. Therefore the first and foremost step that needs to be taken is that the web page content should be search engine optimized. You can say that the right keywords are those words which describe the purpose and content of the site and which turn allows the URL of the website to be displayed in the first result page of the search engine. The listing and the rating not only depends on the choice of the keywords but also on the position of the keywords in the web page and also on the quality of the external pages that link to your web site.

Once the home page is designed and the layouts are done, you have the responsibility of listing down the words and phrases that best define the site. Instead of keywords, you can also use the key phrases. Once the key phrases have been charted out you have to analyze the demand and supply of the key phrases that describe your web site. For instance, if you are hosting a recipe site for French dishes, then you can add key phrases like “French dish”, French cuisine, French Gourmet and so on. When you use such phrases in your web page, the search engine hunts for the relative key words and your web site will be listed. Use key words /phrases that are popular. The popularity of each item will be similar in all the search engines.

Once the key phrases are optimized, you need to optimize the web pages. This is done by positioning the keywords within the page. To optimize your web page, you need to create a descriptive title. This is important because it is what the search engines display as the link text as the result of a search. Remember to keep your title short. You should put the key phrase at the beginning of the title page. You can use the key phrases in the keyword Meta tag; some search engines may use them. Remember to keep the description not only descriptive, concise and professional.

The keywords should be many times in the body of the page. This will ensure that the search engine understands the topic of your page. The key phrases should be used several times and they have to cluster around the top of the page. For instance you can repeat the key phrases five to ten times in a hundred word page. This is really effective. Keep the content simple and readable. The reason is that ultimately it is the readers who decide whether the page is pleasant or not.

If the external sites link to your site, then it is more than enough to show that you have a good rating in the search engine optimization.