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Golden Webs is an innovative website design company based in
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800-614-4523
What is SEO? A Primer
SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, would be better understood if it
were called Website Optimization since we are actually talking about
optimizing websites for search engines versus optimizing search engines.
Regardless, SEO is a technology buzz word that has been around for a
number of years now. Most of us have heard the term SEO, but there still
may be a few out there who don’t know what it means. So, let’s define it
so we can better understand how SEO can help us.
Search Engine Optimization is the process of fine tuning a website for a
specific set of subject matter, called keywords, which a) will be useful
to the web searcher and b), will be helpful to search engines as they
visit a website to determine what it is about. The better optimized a
website is, the more likely it is that a searcher will be able to find
it.
The big three search engines, Google, Yahoo, and MSN, comprise more than
84% of all search engine queries throughout the world. Google is the
hands-down search engine leader with an almost 50% market share. Most
people use search engines to find whatever it is they are looking for,
so it is very important for website owners to be found via at least one
of these three search engines.
On a regular basis, search engines scour the Internet, reviewing most
every website and web page that exists, sometimes whether you want them
to or not. I like to refer to these little visitors as “web bots” or
“search bots.” On some visits, they just check in to see what is going
on, but on other visits, they may make a decision regarding the ranking
of a website or specific pages on a website. These “search bots” are
definitely trainable and I have a separate article that discusses
exactly how to train them.
Websites that have specific content-rich pages focused on a particular
subject or theme are the pages which do well with search engines. NOTE:
Website optimization is not about using the same keyword over and over
again in an unnatural way. This overly redundant usage of keywords is
referred to as “keyword stuffing” and is highly frowned upon by search
engines. Just write good, relevant content for each web page and you
will be on your way.
There are many, many other things one can do to optimize a website for
search engines, but having good content is the number one priority. I
will discuss these other methods in separate articles, so be sure to
look for them.
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About the Author. Bill Golden, founder of Golden Web Design Services,
has grown up with technology since the early 1980s. As the first
“PC Guru” for a US Midwest Fortune 500 company, he directed a variety of
corporate development initiatives over a 17 year period. Bill then
managed a technical training company before starting his own consulting
practice in 2001, specializing in website development, marketing, and
search engine optimization. If you are interested in learning more
about how Bill can help improve your website rankings, you can reach him
at http://www.goldenwebs.biz.
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