Wednesday, December 9, 2009

The Advantage of SEO

By Matt Franklin

Many times a website owner will only look at the Search Engine Results for their chosen key words when it comes to the performance they are getting for their investment into SEO.

Focusing only on a selected keyword or phrase is okay, however it does not take into account what other residual effects you might be receiving.

When a site gets properly optimized, (SEO) it is being transformed into a planned navigational pattern of information. This is the same pattern that Search Engine Spider look for. Something that should not be overlooked, the easier an SEO makes it for a spider to index your site, the better your chances are for getting your site a higher placement in the Search Engine Results Placement (SERPs) for more than just targeted key words or phrases.

While W3C validation is somewhat all sites have to make every effort for, it is not necessary for superior rankings in all categories but as rivalry heats up, the extra steps done now the fewer you will have to do later. Does it help now? With Google using over 200 divide elements for their algorithm, probably. Yahoo engineers have stated that whether a site is W3C compliant or not makes no difference to how it ranks. If it has relevant content, it will get ranked. But there is a big difference between being ranked and top ranking.

Another component of SEO is using appropriate text for of page titles, file names and placement of content make the site all the more important to the spider. But having too countless occurrences of your target phrases and you will lose ground. Although Google places a smaller amount of value on Meta Tags, they are still a component of the algorithm, and so, should not be overlooked.

After the site has been coded properly, the program goes up to the next level. Search Engine Marketing is used to drive traffic to the site through various off site means. This off site promotion SEO effort is even more involved. Think of it like a small community. Getting business depends not only on who you are but who you know. How your website is tied to others in the community of the World Wide Web is important to search ranking too.

Here is where the collateral benefits of SEO begin to appear. The off site program drives traffic to the website from directions other than the search engine. Putting information out that in new areas that generate interest in your products and services all pointing back to your site. Finding relevant websites that add to your visitors experience or that present news relating to your industry help Search Engines determine how well you play with others.

An even better revelation of a collateral benefit is getting good rankings for keywords and phrases that you are not even targeting. Information put out about your goods for instance, if your site speaks about the various uses of the products, the available colours that they come in and the best way to preserve them, you've just created a multitude of various phrases that your site can get ranked on. When your entire website is visible to the Search Engine it begins to determine other areas that you have relevance besides just what you have chosen. These other searches that bring you traffic are all bonus to the targeted work.

This is only a tiny sample of the potential your site has. Remember, each page gets ranked on it's own, so that's why it is so important to make sure every page you have on your site is optimized.

Even your contact/about page is crucial because if you have a brick-and-mortar business, by listing your street address, you help the search engines geographically mark your site. Most search engines are already trying to spot your search results regionally. While it's not a main thing yet, it is something to put your attention.

To sum it all up, you need to start checking Google to see where your site is already been in place especially your keywords. However, you also need to remember all the hidden keywords/phrases that are entrenched in the copy of your site. You might get surprised at how many are those forgotten about terms end up at the top of the pile. And that is the benefit of good SEO.

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