What is search engine optimization?

Do search engines hate optimization?

What does serp mean?

You can define search engine optimization as simply: writing good web pages

Search engine optimization is a process of writing or rewriting web pages that search engines will rank at the top of their search results. ( SERP ) Although it sounds simple, it's not. Search engines rank web pages by the information quality they provide, period. Writing topic specific information on each page is just the beginning. Knowing who the information is for, is the single most important component in search engine optimization. Most good optimization techniques involve educated guessing about which keyword phrases that a specific user group might use to find your web site.

There is no magic formula or guaranteed method to get a first place search results on any search engine list. Search engines have become far too sophisticated to allow themselves to be easily manipulated. In fact, they can retaliate when bad optimizers try. Write a great web page, get great search engine results! So if optimization means making something more efficient, or function at peak performance, search engine optimization means helping search engines to function at their best.

For anyone still researching or planning to hire a search engine optimization company, Google has some good advice about search engine optimizers.

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What do search engines look for on a website?

Search engines don't care what a website looks like, or how much a website costs. Search engines don't notice if you have a beautiful website, and aren't impressed by an award winning website. The only thing that impresses a search engine, is when they are able to find good information on a good website.

Search engine optimization 101 for business web site owners

Anyone can build a good website, there are no real secrets to building search engine optimized web pages. All it takes is some knowledge, skill, experience and a willingness to learn how to play by the rules! Anyone with basic computer skills, can design a good website. It's more about good experience and perspective, than some mysterious technical formula. Ethical search engine optimization is about "how" and "how well" you present information. Unethical SEO involves using tricks to try and mislead search engines.

Important optimization components

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Page title optimization

The single most important web page element is the title of the page. The title should describe the information topic of the entire web page, since it appears at the top of your browser window as soon as the page loads. There are thousands of "untitled" web pages on the web, with millions more titled with terms like "About," "Home page," and "Links." Search engines list web pages by the title, on their results pages. ( SERP ) A good page title will automatically increase your page ranking on every search engine.

Heading optimization    <h1 — h6>

The structure of a web page is determined by the use of headings. Search engines use the heading tags to help them analyze the page text content. Like the page title, headings indicate an important sub-topic, beginning with h1 as the most important and h6 as the least. Note: They must be used in the sequence of importance.

Link optimization

Links to expanded or focused information allow search engines to follow a specific topic. Links to other pages or web sites, help your visitors (including search engines) find information easily. Menus are simply a collection of hyperlinks. Becoming an important hub of information referrals, can increase your search engine ranking... dramatically.

Information optimization

A good web page is written to provide specific visitors with high quality, unique information, about one specific topic. The way that you write a web page should describe as fully as possible, only one main topic per page. Describing several topics on a web page, dilutes the information, confuses search engines and probably your human visitors too!

Page size optimization

To achieve a balance between writing too much important information on one page and then having web pages that load so slowly that your visitors leave, try writing specific information on several pages. This page is approximately 45K of text and takes less than a second to load using a high speed internet connection. If you need to have more than 45K on a single page, that information needs to be very relevant to the page title topic! (50K is fairly large.)

Graphics optimization

Search engine optimizing web site graphics is very simple. Eliminate the pictures! Probably not a realistic option! Although this may not be as appealing to your human visitors, web site graphics annoy search engine spiders. They can't see, they can only read. Good alt text helps search engines to understand what your pictures describe. Keeping graphics file sizes small, reusing the same graphics on your web pages and keeping graphics use to a minimum, will help your pages to load faster and will make them more readable and search engine friendly as well.

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Search engine optimization is about meeting visitor expectations

Website visitors all have the same expectations:

• They expect to actually find the information they are searching for.
• They don't want to waste time searching around the website for that information.
• They expect the web pages to be readable.
• They expect to easily navigate to other information pages.
• and
• Search engine spiders have the same expectations!

Search engine optimization is about seeing your website from a search engine spiders' perspective!

What's the difference between search engine robots and human visitors?

• Spiders won't guess what the page is about.
• Spiders never send you an e-mail for an explanation!
• Spiders know how to spell!
• Spiders could not care less how beautiful your pictures are, unless you describe them in detail.
• Spiders have no emotional response to your web page or it's information content.
• Spiders will leave your site immediately, if they can't understand the web page.
• Spiders understand important meta tags
• Spiders know what good page titles are.
• Spiders get excited by good links to more good business information.
• Spiders really appreciate a search engine friendly website.

Ethical search engine optimization is not illegal!

Optimizing a web page for specific key-word phrases and concepts, is exactly what the www expects from every web page on the web! Specific information is what every web page should provide. Unfortunately, many optimized web sites don't follow the search engine rules. Engaging in misleading or intentionally deceptive practices, is not search engine optimization, it's called spamdexing! If you allow your website designer or optimizer to use special tricks to optimize a web site, your site will probably be de-indexed from the search engine database! If that was the result of your last attempt at do it yourself optimization, we would suggest a complete web site re-write!

Should you find our search engine information useful and wish to link directly to this web page, simply copy and paste the following link text onto any of your site's pages:

<a href="http://www.seowebsitesdesigners.com/search_engine_optimization/search_engine_optimization.html">What is optimization?</a>

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