Search Engine Basics

© Illa Maden   November 2006

Know search engine basics

Knowing something about search engines before you even begin to develop a website is the best, but it's never too late to optimize.

Organic search engine traffic is free and can be plentiful if you have made the right choices along the way. Some of those right choices include selecting to promote the right product and then optimizing your site for search engines as it is built.

Keyword research is an essential part of search engine basics

Search engines look for certain things and they are just machines, so a little help from you is  a win for your website and the search engine as well.

Search engines send out what is called a spider to look through your site and read the pages. Each search engine has it's own personality and criteria. Much of how the search engines grade web sites is unknown, and they guard these secrets carefully. Also, search engines change their criteria from time to time.

However, observation can help to figure out just what the search engines think of as a good web page. Looking at successful websites and analyzing what they are doing to find favor with search engines can help a great deal.

It is good to add certain elements to your webpages as you build them. Keywords have a large part to play in these elements. Title tags, meta tags, and keywords are all a part of the process. Each search engines will look for some of these items, and disregard others. Sprinkling keywords throughout copy, and adding h1and h2 tags are also of importance

Although it is thought that Google pays no attention to meta tags, other search engines do. Page title does seem to be important to Google.

While some webmasters no longer add meta tags, it probably couldn't hurt. Even small traffic if it is targeted can be of great benefit, so why turn it down when it takes little time to add meta tags.

Your site may be spidered a number of times before it is indexed and appears in the search engines. Even if you feel impatient, don't give up, it does often take time.

Along with preparing pages properly, it is important to get links to your website. You are likely to get indexed more quickly through the search engines following links to your website than by actually submitting your site to search engines, so do pursue getting links to your website.

More than search engine basics

Although you may feel that your pages are well optimized, be prepared to make some changes in the future. In the meantime, put some effort into off page optimization. Work on getting links to your site. Reciprocal links will help to get your site noticed by the search engines.  Also you can write and submit articles which will help you get one way links into your new website. Do some research on writing bio boxes to add to articles. The anchor text used can greatly improve how the search engines look at your site.

Search engine optimization is not a one time and you're done thing, it is a work in progress. There is always something you can do to get a better placement with the search engines. More information on search engine basics.

As a final note: Search engines are somewhat mysterious, but they are not the enemy. They are not going to go away. Search engines provide a simple service. Searchers enter search phrases (sometimes worded in a very interesting way). Search engines try to match those searches with the proper results. It is in your best interest to try and provide what the search engines want rather than focus on devious methods to try and trick them. Some do this and indeed they often benefit for a short period of time. The search engines are getting smarter, and if you want a long term business it is better to observe ethical practices. 

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