Beginner's Guide to Search Engine Optimization - page 3

by Sharad Saxena, 1/14/2006

Search engines and directories take the following variables into consideration when determining your site's ranking in the results for a specific search:

Quality - The quality of your Web site affects the directory editor's evaluation of your submission. Quality refers to utility or usefulness and comprehensiveness.
Title - The title is one of the most important factors in your site's eventual search engine ranking. Because directory search engines such as Yahoo! only search through the title, description, and URL you submit, having important keywords in your title is critical.
Content - For search engines that index your page using an automated process, such as AltaVista, Google, Teoma, AllTheWeb, MSN, Inktomi, the content is critical. The content must be brief, focused, and internally consistent.
Description - The Meta description tag must speak convincingly to the search engine user and must include key words and phrases.
Popularity - Popularity is a term used to describe search engines' measurement of your site's importance to the Web community. It factors in the number, quality, and type of Web pages that include links back to your page. Google has a branded version of popularity it calls Page Rank. Links to your Web site increase your popularity and offer search engine spiders robots more opportunities to index your page.
SEO - Search Engine Optimization fine-tune the code on your page to help you win for specific searches.

Search Engine Optimization is a science as well as an art

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the science and art of achieving higher visibility across today's most important search engines. In order to achieve the maximum and most beneficial results, search engine optimization today needs to be carefully planned and executed as an integrated project.

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As soon as new site visitors arrive at your website the first thing they need to know, before anything else, is what you do. You can talk all you like about how great you are, but unless you spell out what you actually do, they won't even know what you're so great at! This oh-so-overlooked yet such basic of information can be communicated to your site visitors in a number of different ways. Read 'Tell me what you do!'.

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