Why Bother?
Search engines provide free traffic to your web site. While it will still be necessary to use other methods of promotion, free is always good. If you follow the steps below, you have taken the first step to getting good search engine rankings.
- Create content pages - Add content pages relevant to your sites main products, services or information topic. Link all of these pages together using html text links so the search engine spyders can read and follow them.
- Provide one-way incoming links - Create a free product with a link back to your site - For example, phpBB, which is a free forum software program, carries a link in the forum footer that says “Powered by pphBB” and contains a hyperlink to their web site.
- Write articles - Submit your articles to article directories and allow others to use them free on their web sites as long as they leave the link back to your site intact.
- List your site in resource directories - Register your site with sites that have resource directories that don't require you to provide a reciprocal link.
- Choose the right keywords - Your keyword should be a term or phrase that describes the product, services or information offered on your web site that people are most likely to type into a search engine to find that particular thing. You can use a keyword tool like the free online tool at http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion to see how many people actually typed in that keyword recently or get the excellent free downloadable desktop keyword tool at http://www.goodkeywords.com
- Meta tags - Meta tags are part of the HTML page description language that provides information for the search engine spyders. They provide the title of the page a description of the content, relevant keywords, geographic information, etc.
- Text formatting – use header tags and bold, italicized or underlined text to emphasize keywords but don't overdo it. The text needs to read well for human visitors too. Don't compromise readability to optimize for the search engines. Getting a visitor to the site is pointless if the site content doesn't convince them to do what you them to do after they arrive.
- Alternate text tag - The <alt> tag is used to describe the contents of a picture on your web page. The content of the alt tag will appear in some browsers if your hold the mouse over a picture. It also appears if the picture is not shown because a user has disabled images to let the page load faster or is using a hand held device to access the internet. Always use the alt tag with all of your pictures and include your keywords where it makes sense to use them.
- Site map - A site map is basically a simple one page navigation system leading to every nook and cranny of your web site. It lists every page in the web site in a logical order and contains an html link to the page as part of the listing. Links need to be HTML so the spyders can read and follow them.
Add Fresh Content to Your Site Regularly
Customers like new content. After all, would you watch a TV program is it only showed the same episode every time?
If you want people to come back to your web site again, they need a reason. If you sell products, you might want to add a product review section and add new reviews each week. In fact reviews are an excellent way to get customers to come back so they can see what you think about the products they are considering.
Summary
Search engine optimization can provide free traffic for as long as your site is in existence. It is well worth the time, effort and initial cost to do it right and maintain fresh content to keep your rankings high. However, it should not be your only marketing method. Rather, it should be a part of an integrated approach that includes advertising and promotion as well as search engine optimization.
