What is Search Engine Optimization and How Can It Help My Website Get Traffic?
Are you trying to figure out what all the hype is about and finally get a decent answer to the question, what does SEO stand for? The term stands for search engine optimization. It is slightly confusing because the term also can be used to refer to a search engine optimizer i.e. the person that does the web optimizing.
At this point the web is extremely competitive and there is a website and a webpage for almost every topic imaginable. If you want to make it to the top of the Google SERP’s i.e. search engine ranking placement, then you will need to learn how the search engines work and optimize your website for maximum visibility.
Search engine optimization can be used to describe several key factors but it’s easy to break down the definition into two main categories:
Internal SEO
This usually refers to the way you create your content. Keep in mind that Google is a machine and should be treated as such. If you are trying to rank well for a term like “what does SEO stand for” then you had better start by placing that keyword term into the title of your article.
It is then helpful if you place it towards both the beginning and the end of the post. There is a huge body of knowledge on this subject and it’s hard to explain every single aspect of the subject in one short and concise article however as a general rule its good to incorporate your keyword terms into the body of your articles several times but no more than once per every hundred words. In addition, you may want to stylize your target keywords in a bold font.
If you are using a website like Wordpress there are plugins that let you customize your meta title, tags and description which will give you a significant advantage over your competitors.
It is important to focus on internal methods but there is only so much you can do in regard to making your content easily accessible for Google’s indexing system.
Much of the magic happens outside your content which brings us to the second and in my opinion most important area of focus.
External SEO
Providing quality content that is based on solid keyword research is the first piece of the puzzle but that alone will not get you the web traffic that you are hoping for. After you create and optimize your content you will need to build anchor text keyword links on related websites that point to your content. Google uses these links to determine how reputable your content is and also uses that information to decide where to place you when someone uses their search engine to find your target keywords. One of the most difficult tasks for internet marketers is the process of building quality anchor text links and finding linking partners that are willing to point to your content.
This is another area that you could be expanded on at length but just to get you started there are a few tricks that the professional internet marketers use to build links.
Some of the most popular places and methods of building links include:
1.) Article Marketing
Websites like EzineArticles.com and GoArticles.com let you submit content and generally give you the ability to place an anchor text link in the author description box.
2.) Forums
Several message boards let you place links in your signature. Some of my favorite forums include: Digitalpoint and Warriorforum
3.) Contact Webmasters
This method works great for building high quality links. Contact a site owner and see if they would be willing to make a link exchange… If they are interested in the opportunity they will reply back and let you know what they would like their link to say and where you should point it.
Keep in mind that the work you do outside your content creation will provide most of your SERP movement so try to spend twenty percent creating content and the other eighty percent building links. I have only mentioned a few of the ways you can accomplish this task but if you do some digging you will find a million suggestions and venues that can include anything from blog commenting to account creation.
One service that I would highly recommend if you’re not afraid to invest a little money in your website is called 1waylinks. This is a service that lets you create articles and spreads them out on a network of high quality websites. Inside the articles you will place terms that you want to rank well for pointing to your content. I think you will find that the rewards for this activity far exceed the cost!
This is probably more information than you had originally wanted to know but hopefully you won’t be running around google asking what does SEO stand for? How do you think you found this article in the first place?
