The very basics of search engine optimization

Written by Joe on Thursday, August 5, 2010

Everyone with a website knows of search engine optimization

They all know of search engine optimization, but not many really understand it. Over the past months I have had some conversations with business owners about their websites and their search engine optimization techniques. While speaking to them,I realized that they were focused on the wrong stuff. Focusing on keyword density and trying to get results too quickly were amoung the most common issues. The purpose of this article is to explain search engine optimization at the most basic level.

1. How search engines work

This image will give you an idea of how complicated google really is. In a nutshell, search engines crawl the web, cache the content of a webpage, and search the cahced websites when a search query is entered. How the results are displayed is a whole other story. Google will determine the websites authority on a subject by how many inlinks the page has, location, user preferences, and more. Search engine algorythms have gotten so complex and include so many factors, know the exact process is almost impossible. Which is why this is something you don't need to focus on, but understanding how it works will help you to understand search engine optimization.

2. Be patient

The first question most business owners have after getting a new website is how long will it take for people to find me on google. There is no answer to this question. It could take a month, it could take a year. Depending on the content of your website and competitiveness of your keywords, it could take more or less time. Don't focus on what page you are on in the search engines, focus on creating a website that is useful to your customers. The more useful your website is to your customers, the more authoritive you will become in your area of business.

3. Content is king

Your website needs content. And not just some nice graphics and a list of your products and services. Give your users something interesting that will get them involved. Write articles, create a poll or contest, involving your users and giving them something to come back to will help improve your search engine ranking.

4. Pay-per-click vs organic results

Pay-per-click is great to get a quick boost in traffic, if you have the budget for it. Pay-per-click will boost your traffic and you will see the results almost instantly. But once you cut it off, all of that traffic is gone. The best way to get traffic to your website is through organic search engine optimization. This means filling your website with useful information for your users.

5. Good markup = better seo results

Make sure when searching for a freelance website designer, that you choose one who is experienced and understands how to code a website properly. Errors in HTML code is not only bad for search engines, it is also bad for your users. Search engine optimization is all about the users. If it's bad for them, it's bad for search engines.

All in all, search engine optimization is about creating a useful resource for your users. Repeating keywords over and over won't get you anywhere and will make your website look terrible. Have you ever seen a website that just seemed to repeat the same words over and over? Did you enjoy it? Focus on your users and search engines will recognize it.