SEO (Search Engine Optimization) guide for beginners

Introduction of SEO:

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume of traffic to a web site from search engines via natural search results and getting listed higher in search results. As the people normally use to see only 1st page results against their query in search engines hence it is important to get at top rank with relevant search term using different techniques. The whole process is known as search engine optimization, and SEO is just a small part of internet marketing.

What is a Search Engine?

A web search engine is designed to search for information on the World Wide Web. When a user write specific query according to his/her requirement then it shows the user some information on the basis of the user’s query. The information may consist of web pages, images, information and other types of files.

How web search engines work?

A search engine operates, in the following order:

• Crawling - is the process of fetching all the web pages linked to a web site. This task is performed through a search engine’s bot (a software) called a crawler.

• Indexing - is the process of creating index for all the fetched web pages and keeping them into a giant database from where it can later be retrieved against the suitable keywords and phrases.

• Processing - When a search query comes, the search engine processes it. i.e. it compares the search query with the indexed pages in the database.

• Calculating Relevancy and displaying result - Since it is likely that more than one page contains the search string, so the search engine starts calculating the relevancy of each of the pages in its index to the search string and displays the best matched result to the user.

Search Engine Market Share:

Search engines popularity depends on the ultimate market share they provide.

SEO Process:

SEO is a tricky task. Conceptually, there are following ways of doing SEO

• On-Page SEO- All Work which involves some changes in page’s content or code directly is called on page SEO. This includes providing good content, good keywords selection. Putting keywords on correct places, giving appropriate title to every page etc. Putting appropriate meta tags in pages etc.

• Off-Page SEO – The SEO work which directly doesn’t involve any content or code modification is called off page SEO. This includes link building, increasing link popularity by submitting in open directories and search engines, link exchange etc.

More details of each step is as below:

Keywords selection:

Selecting keywords and optimizing your website for those keywords is the foundation of getting traffic from search engines. It’s important to choose the right keywords for your site. The first thing people do when searching for something they are interested in is usually to go to search engine and type in their keywords. The search engine will then return a list of results that are relevant to the keywords they entered. Some keywords and keyword phrases are more competitive than others. Choosing your keywords carefully will give you a better chance of ranking high and driving traffic. For this purpose you can use different keyword analysis tool available online to do this e.g. word tracker and overture.

Internal Link structure/ site navigation:

The internal site structure /site Navigation plays an important role in SEO process. A fine navigational structure helps crawler to easily navigate through all pages of your website and index them appropriately.

Website Content and heading:

While the importance of a heading is apparent with HTML tags, so by using them we actually making it easy for the search engine robots to determine what the web page is all about. The search engine can see exactly what the main topic of the page is and place you under the appropriate keywords so your potential customers will be able to find you on the WWW. When writing your headings, include your main keywords in the headings and bolds in order to get the most chances of getting indexed with the specific keywords.

Meta tags:

Meta tags are basically a tool that will help improve your standings in search engines that use them. A Meta tag is a hidden tag that lives in the section of an HTML document. It is used to supply additional information about the HTML document.

The three main tags used by search engines while processing results are title, description and keywords tags. The syntax for these three Meta tags is as below:

Title- The page’s title; like an heading of the page’s title

Keywords – words that identify what the page is about, usually used in search engines

Description – a short description of the page; that what the page is all about.

Link building:

Link building is a pretty general term used to describe anything you do to build links to a website. There are two primary reasons to build links; Direct Click-Through Traffic, and Search Engine Optimization (SEO). While the goal of most search engine optimization campaigns is to build traffic, the goal of SEO based link building is higher rankings; hence link building plays an important role in SEO campaign for a website. Similarly a one way link to your website is very important for higher ranking in Google.

Directories and search engine submission:

Directories and search engines submission is also a very important off page SEO factor. The submission in directories and search engines let them know about your site importance and its content. Also the directory submission includes the benefit of a back link for your website.

Article marketing:

In paper-print form (as opposed to online forms), article marketing is utilized commonly by business owners as a means of obtaining free press space. A local business provides useful content to the newspaper free of charge, and in return the newspaper prints the business’ contact information with the article. Because newspapers and other traditional media are expected to present content on limited budgets, this online arrangement is generally advantageous for all parties involved. A good link popularity comes from article marketing and help in improvement in promotion of the website.

Many other advance internet marketing strategies can be used to enhance your website popularity and sales promotion likes Social Media optimization (Facebook, twitter, delicious, my spaces etc.), classified ads marketing, banner marketing, Paid search engine inclusions, pay per click etc.

It is important to avoid any kind of black hat or grey hat SEO techniques as they can lead to get your site banned from the search engine index as a plenty. As a Black hat SEO can be defined as techniques or tactics which have been defined by Google as in violation of the Google “Quality Guidelines” e.g. spamming, hidden text, cloaking, doorway pages etc.