SiteSubmission Network

Search engine optimization is a lot easier than you think. Although you need to gather a certain amount of information about your site, preferably before you build your site, once you have the right information, you can quickly and easily build a search engine optimized website that will get you traffic.

Below are five tips for optimizing and submitting your site to the search engines:

1. Know your market.

This step is absolutely crucial. You need to know exactly who you are marketing your business to. If you don’t, you can’t drive targeted traffic to your site.

The difference between targeted and untargeted traffic is glaring. Targeted traffic comes from those who are looking for your products and services. If you know exactly who you are marketing to, you’ll optimize your site for that market.

2. Target the right keywords.

Target the wrong keywords and no one will find you. That’s why it is really useless to use marketing tools like doorway pages.

The first thing you need to do is understand what your visitors are searching for.

The keyword terms you may want to optimize for, and what your potential customers are actually searching for, can be different.

Tools like Good Keywords, http://www.goodkeywords.com, can help you find out what others are searching for. The more times that a keyword or keyword term is searched for the better. To determine if you have a lucrative term, do a search in the search engines for the term. Make sure that you search for the exact term.

The more times a term is searched for, and the fewer the sites in the search engines, the more lucrative the term.

3. Learn search engine optimization.

When I first started marketing online, I read all of the guru stuff about buying banners, advertising, etc. The problem was that I just starting out. I was trying to make money, not give away everything that I had.

After becoming a search engine optimization marketer, I felt betrayed. Most of these people didn’t talk about search engine optimization because they didn’t do it. They simply took offline marketing techniques and adapted them to the internet.

Search engine optimization is one of those rare marketing techniques that has no corresponding offline marketing technique.

It’s an online technique. Period. If you want to be successful at it, then you need to learn how to do it. It’s not that hard.

One tool that can help you is Web CEO, http://www.webceo.com. This free software works for both PC and Mac. It includes all of the tools you need to optimize your site, and it’s free. It even includes step by step documentation to teach you search engine optimization: what works, what you need to know, and steps you can take to improve your rankings.

Read the documentation for this software, and you’ll know the most important things you need to know about optimizing your site for the search engines.

4. Optimize your site for the search engines.

Once you’ve learned the basics of search engine optimization, then it’s time to optimize your site for the search engines.

Start by selecting your keywords. You can use the Good Keywords software to help you.

You should optimize for no more than three keyword terms per page.

Once you have your keywords, plug your site into Web CEO. Remember, you are optimizing pages, not your site.

Analyze your site and see what changes you need to make. Once you’ve done that, you can edit and reload or upload your site to the internet.

5. Submit your site to the search engines.

There’s some disagreement on whether or not you should submit your site to the search engines, or whether you should just wait for the search engine spiders to find you.

I stand in the camp that says submit. The reason is that these search engines don’t always update the way they should, and although they claim that they will find your site, they may not.

I know this because I had one site that had never been found by MSN eventhough it was linked to all of my other sites and all of my other sites were fully included in MSN.

There are only five places that I recommend you submit, and you should do this manually. Although Web CEO has a submission tool, it’s better to submit your site manually.

Below is my list of where to submit your site:

Google - http://www.google.com/addurl/?continue=/addurl MSN/Inktomi - http://submitit.bcentral.com/msnsubmit.htm (Includes Inktomi) MSN - http://beta.search.msn.com/docs/submit.aspx Yahoo - http://search.yahoo.com/info/submit.html Alexa - http://pages.alexa.com/help/webmasters/index.html Exactseek - http://www.exactseek.com/add.html

These sites cover most of the internet. Before you submit, there are a few things you should know:

1. Alexa is part of Google search. You will get better results submitting here first. This site also allows you to include a thumbnail of your site. You will also get indexed faster.

2. Read the information on each site for getting included. The best way to learn how to market in any search engine is to read the information offered by the site. You’ll pick up valuable free tips directly from the source.

3. Once you’ve submitted your site, forget about it. Concentrate on building quality content and links to your site.

Once you’ve built a site of around 100 pages, start another one on a topic you are passionate about. Continue adding content to the site or sites you’ve already built. Keep repeating this process, and you’ll achieve success in the search engines: targeted traffic, more sales, and a reputation for providing quality content.



Search Engine Rankings

It is imperative that website owners recognize the value of owning a site that is highly ranked and visible for search engine results. In the mid- 1990’s, webmasters and content providers began optimizing websites for search engines. This is currently referred to as search engine optimization (SEO). SEO is simply the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a website for search engines using “natural” (”organic” or algorithmic”) search results. Specifically, if a site is presented prior to others within a search result or “ranks” higher than others, then that particular website would be visited more frequently. Historically, search engines suffered from abuse and ranking manipulation because they were forced to rely solely on factors that were exclusively within a webmasters control. Therefore in order to provide better results for their users, search engines had to adapt by developing intense complex ranking algorithms that webmasters could no longer manipulate. SEO is also capable of identifying a variety of searches to include image search, local search, and industry- specific vertical search engines.

As a marketing strategy, SEO is used to increase a site’s relevance. The SEO recognizes how search organics work and what people are searching for. It also initiates efforts to include unique content to a site to ensure that its content is easily indexed by search engine robots, making it more appealing to users. Other techniques are the Black Hat SEO and White Hat SEO. Before distinguishing these techniques, however, one must have knowledge of the three major search engines on the internet. The leading and most marketable search engine is Google. Yahoo and MSN bring up the rear. The majority of the people who “surf” the internet use Google. More over, every search engine on the web has personal algorithms to implement a method for evaluating the importance of your website. Specifically, they have to optimize their website according to detailed guidelines. One type of individual within the SEO may follow the guidelines of these search engines, others may not. Subsequently, it is a necessity to identify the difference between the Black Hat SEO and the White Hat SEO.

SEO techniques are basically classified into two broad categories: techniques that search engines recommend as part of an impressive design and those techniques that search engines greatly disapproves of; which are referred to as spamdexing. The Black Hat SEO technique is used by people that demonstrate intent to deceive the search engine. They feel that the search engine is their enemy. Unfortunately, these people refuse to follow the rules and use unethical measures to achieve top ranking. The Black Hat SEO uses text that is hidden or color disguised or it may use a method that is referred to as cloaking. The White Hat SEO is an ethical way of search engine optimization. It creates content for users, not for search engines. Furthermore, it makes that content easily accessible to the spiders, rather than attempt to deliberately deceive the algorithm. Upon the discovery of Black Hat techniques, search engines may penalize sites by reducing their rankings or eliminating their listings from the database.

One of the best tools that most web business owners can utilize is the search engine optimization. The SEO will make the most out of your business online. SEO is significant in that it has the power to increase the website traffic while simultaneously improving your sales. Website business owners have the opportunity to obtain an advantage over the online competition. Ironically, many owners are not familiar with SEO and its benefits; therefore they are apt to commit mistakes in the attempt to utilize such a program.

One of the prominent mistakes that web business owners commit is the extensive time dedicated to their website design and not enough time on the content. Primarily focusing on the content will entice more people to visit the website. Instead of spending money on site design, invest in copywriting. Committing to this will certainly benefit the online business as the search engines will reward websites that offer fresh content to their visitors, regardless of its format. However, if it is the owner’s intent to solely improve search engine optimization rankings, perhaps they should post blogs or forums that visitors can use to interact with others. A web business owner must also offer something unique within site’s content. The owner should be able to properly optimize the site so that it is interesting to your targeted market.

Another mistake is the inappropriate keyword phrases. In order to optimize successfully, the owner has to select correct keywords that your customers may use in their search on the web. This is especially essential for small to medium sized businesses. Basically, if the keywords or phrases are not specifically related to your customers’ desires, your website doesn’t appear in the search results. Remember to be descriptive as possible which not only helps the visitors, but the actual online business. Use the words that are related to your content which is called keyword optimization.

The two terms “search engine optimization” and search engine marketing” (SEM) are often used interchangeably. However, the terms have different functions. The SEO is a component of SEM whereas it is a function of the SEM process or campaign. Again, SEO is the process of optimizing a website for search engine listing. The SEM, however, is a form of internet marketing that acknowledges and promotes websites by increasing their visibility within the search engine results page. The methods of SEM include SEO, paid placement, paid inclusion and pay- per- click campaigns which offer the advantage of immediacy.

A popular way of improving your ranking in the search engines is to ensure that your site is important. This can be established through link building. Link building is a measure used to persuade other websites to link to your personal site, thereby increasing your “link popularity.” This process is imperative in attempts to increase your ranking in the search engines. This is also a strategy that is resistant to manipulation while justifying a website’s importance. Consequently, the link building process receives high priority within the internet marketing campaign. Search engine marketing is also a powerful tool for a business owner inbound links to a website by writing articles. These articles should be submitted to article syndication websites where other webmasters are free to use the articles on their sites. The key is to include a link to your website with your signature.

Search engine optimization may not be an appropriate strategy for every website. More so, additional search engines referrals does not guarantee more sales. Also, internet marketing strategies can be effective, depending on the site operators’ goals. Any successful internet marketing campaign can drive organic search results to pages, but it may also require paid advertisement and continued referrals.



Search Engine Rankings