Whether you intend to tackle search engine optimization yourself or want to outsource this , you must have a basic knowledge of what is going on and what you must do to influence your positioning.
Search engine optimization is all about making it easier for the search engine to match your website pages with search keywords.
Basically a search engine receives a request from a searcher containing one or more keywords.
The search engine then looks through it's database and gives a result page with the most relevant pages to the searcher.
If anything, remember this, the searcher determines the keywords, and then the search engine searches for the pages which are most relevant by comparing the occurrences of the keywords on these pages.
You can not influence the keywords the searcher is using ( well, actually you can, but that is what we call off-line marketing), but you can facilitate the search engine on your website and you can make content that contains the most relevant keywords.
The basics of search engine optimization are:
- select a theme for your site
- research keywords
- site structure
- determine optimization points
- write content
- start linking
- measure results
- change negatives
- add/update content
Selecting a theme for your site
Most of the times you will already have your "product", and you product will determine your sites theme.
Sometimes we will encounter a seemingly unrelated product and theme, but a closer look will reveal that there is always a strong (marketing) relation between a sites theme and the products it offers. Example management site with serious management content offering golfing products. So dare think out of the box.
Keyword Research
Research the keywords that people type in the search engines to get to the specific theme of your site.
It is very important to understand that what you think is the most relevant keyword, may not be what most searchers think is the most relevant , so always do your research.
Various tools are available to do this.
