SEO – Search Engine Optimization – What is it?

The Online Marketing medium continues to evolve, but one buzzword has established itself as a stronghold in Search Marketing and this is SEO, Search Engine Optimization. So what is SEO?

SEO – search engine optimization, the technique of placing a website as a relevant source for search engines to reference for information

As the search engines continue to evolve the complexity of turning your website into a search engine resource for information continues to get increasingly complex.

The following information establishes a sampling of the factors search engines use to measure whether a website is relevant to the search engine:

Meta-tags – the creation of information that is placed at the top of all web page back-end (area
users do not see) documents to establish what a website is about and the keywords it should be established relevant for. Characteristics include title, keywords, description, and other references that do exist you can create in your tags – but are known not to have much weight as compared to the three mentioned above. Each of a website’s pages should have unique meta tags that reinforce the keywords that are naturally present on that particular page.

Examples of Meta-Tags: e-mail zach@seo.cc for sample - blog does not allow post of code

Meta Title Tag – the information in this tag will appear as the title of the page title in the top right-hand corner of the web browser window. This tag should describe the page at hand and utilize the keywords in which that page is to be focused around. The meta title tag is currently believed to be the most heavily weighted meta-tag by search engine spiders.

EXAMPLE: e-mail zach@seo.cc for sample - blog does not allow post of code

Meta Description Tag – this tag should be used to provide a brief description of the page at hand in proper sentence format. Try to create one to three sentences which include the different variations of the keywords being targeted on that particular page. In many cases this description is what is displayed below the page title in the search engine results pages.

EXAMPLE: e-mail zach@seo.cc for sample - blog does not allow post of code

Meta Keywords Tag – in this area list the keywords in which you have decided to focus that page of your website on. Long extensive keyword lists are not going to work favorably towards your website. Try keeping this keyword list down to a maximum of ten keywords per page. Separate the keywords with commas and keep them all lower-cased.

e-mail zach@seo.cc for sample - blog does not allow post of code

Images – pictures on your website speak an advanced language to web users as they speak to a user’s vision. These pictures currently cannot be read by the search engine blindly, but you the web page owner can make these pictures speak. The strategies to make pictures speak include proper file names to describe your picture and proper alt tags (alternative information to appear in case the picture does not load); an alt tag should be a brief two to five word description of what a particular website photo is.
Example of Image ALT Tags
ALT Tags on a Linked Image: e-mail zach@seo.cc for sample - blog does not allow post of code

ALT Tags on a Non-Linked Image: e-mail zach@seo.cc for sample - blog does not allow post of code

Site Map – structure of your website and all the web pages that comprise your current website, this information helps the search engines guide their computers through your particular website and tell the search engine what information it may want to index. Write your site map as an outline of your website with each page title hyperlinked to that page.

Social Media – involves using platforms to create dynamic data for the search engines to find information about your website from what they may consider to be relevant resources. The most basic form of this media is creating a blog and this is becoming a large factor in search engine optimization success. A blog is the most basic form of website social media and allows for a website publisher or owner to write dynamic content to either point relevant information to their current website or to a relevant source of website information.
Examples of Social Media
Blogs
MySpace.com
Digg.com
Yelp.com
FaceBook.com
FatWallet.com
LinkedIn.com

Website Address Relevance – when you are on a particular website and you click around onto various sections or pages you want to be sure the information describing your page is relevant to the information the user will find on each page of the website. If you need to re-name a corresponding page, the page being re-named for relevance should have a “301 re-direct” placed on it – this allows for the old page to be forwarded to the new home of the information.

Dependant on the code being used on the websites 301 permanent redirects can be different.

In conclusion, Search Engine Optimization is a continuously evolving method to creating a website to be relevant to a search engine. Methods of Search Engine Optimization mentioned above are only a fraction of current methods being put into play, other methods are currently always arising in the marketplace and we make it our job to stay on top of the rapidly evolving Search Engine Optimization marketplace.

We are holding three weekly educational seminars this week on Online Marketing and have limited space available for Thursday - May 22, 2008 at 4:00 PM EST & Friday - May 23, 2008 at two times 11:00 AM & 4:00 PM EST.

Please RSVP to Zach@seo.cc.

Please forward this on to any colleagues you know that may be interested in our services.