What is Search Engine Optimization?

If you plan to operate a website, then it is best for you to learn as much as you can about search engine optimization.  Done properly, SEO will help you receive a lot of visitors to your website.  Here are the basics to help you get started.

Keyword research is one of the most important parts of search engine optimization.  You will need to find the best words for your website to compete for.  When choosing keywords you need to take into account search volume as well as how much competition the keywords and phrases have.

Another important aspect of search engine optimization is getting inbound links.  Each link you get back to your website can be thought of as a single vote.  The more votes that you get the easier you will rise to the top of the rankings.

It is important to note however, that some votes mean much more than others.  A link to your website from a PR9 page will be much more useful to you than a link from a PR1 page.  Therefore, try to find higher ranked pages to obtain back links.

As far as on-page search engine optimization, you need to pay attention to the title element.  This will establish what the page is about.  The content the search engine robots find on the page should be relevant to the title or you will be penalized.  The title of your page is also helpful for potential visitors since it is the link that they see on the search results pages.

Content is a huge part of proper search engine optimization.  All of the content on your website needs to be not only unique, but also useful to your website visitors.  If it is not useful, they likely will not stay very long.  Nowadays, search engines factor in the average amount of time that visitors stay.  They will be less likely to send people to sites they will not find useful.

You will also need to use the keywords you found throughout your content.  Avoid using them too much because it will look spammy to search engines and awkward to your human visitors.  Although there is no actual consensus on the best keyword density to have on your pages, anywhere between 1% and 3% is safe.

Keeping your content fresh will also attract search engine spiders and return visitors.  They will also update your pages faster in the results which will soon lead to a higher position.  If you have not started a blog on your website, then now is the perfect time.