Search Engine Optimization in Website Marketing

In any website marketing campaign, you are going to be faced with search engine optimization or SEO. SEO is a name given to the process of getting a website to rank high in search engine results when certain keywords and phrases are used on the popular search engines like Yahoo and Google. It is important in website marketing because by having your site listed on the first page of returned search query results, you are more than likely going to get optimum exposure. Plus, more people will know of your site much quicker. The underlying principle is that there is a greater likelihood that someone searching for your site will click on whatever is displayed on the first page of the results. Of course you want more visitors to your site because it potentially means more business.

Behind the Scenes

We have identified that SEO is important to website marketing but it also helps to understand a little of the technical nature of the process. People do not rank your website on the search engines—computers do. This is done through a software process called a Searchbot. The Searchbot scans the internet and when it hits your site, it “reads” it and classifies it as well as tries to determine its popularity. Should the Searchbot make a determination that your site is popular, it will rank it higher. A search engine optimization consultant understands the algorithm and technical nature of the Searchbot and will implement strategies to help the Searchbot find, classify, and rank your site.

It Does Not Happen Overnight

It is important to set the proper expectations when it comes to SEO and website marketing. By proper expectations, we mean that it does not happen overnight. Too many people bring a new site online, hire a SEO consultant, and expect their website to be ranked on the first page the very next day. This is impossible because first of all, the Searchbots used by the major search engines do not run every day and when they do, it takes several days to scan the entire internet. Not only this but much of SEO strategy is carefully analyzing what works and what does not work when attempting to get your site classified and ranked.

The Importance of Keywords

Keywords are used in search engine optimization and website marketing to help the searchbot classify your site. They can be thought of as something of an index but not really. A searchbot is going to attempt to “read” your site and it if finds the occurrence of certain keywords numerous times in the content pages then it can make a determination as to the category it belongs in. Let’s say that you have a website that offers automobile accessories. You would want as your main keywords “automobile accessories.” This way the searchbot can classify you with the rest of the websites selling automobile accessories.

Now, understand that “automobile accessories” is a highly-competitive keyword phrase. There are probably thousands of sites out there that sell “automobile accessories.” This is where the secondary keyword phrases come in. For example, for your automobile accessories website, you could use the secondary phrase “European automobile accessories.” This helps to narrow down the classification.

A Word about Flash Websites

The key to successful search engine optimization as it relates to website marketing is to have a website that the searchbot can “read.” By “read” we mean that the HTML text can be read by the searchbot program. This is the HTML source that you do not see when a page is rendered in a browser. Websites presented in Flash graphics present a special problem because for the most part the searchbot cannot read the compiled binary code of .swf files. There are methods in web design that can be utilized involving a mixture of HTML with embedded Flash objects. The methodology is a topic for another whole article but the key to remember is that searchbots cannot read Flash or any other binary object. They can only read text that you can load into a text editor such as Notepad.

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