Web sites in today’s competitive business market that are not optimized for search don’t have much of a chance of being found by potential customers; and that goes for non-business sites as well.

Here are a few resources to help you get started to optimize your site:

The Basics of Good Search Engine Optimization

Good search engine optimization is very basic. A successful search engine optimization campaign will contain these essential components:

Content. Content is what drives search engine rankings, content is what brings users to your site, and content, when sprinkled appropriately with keyword phrases, will feed search engine spiders. Rinse, repeat. Content is key in search engine optimization.
Simple Site Design. Sites that are successful in the search engine results have this in common-they are all simply designed, with a minimum of bandwidth hogging graphics, slowly loading animations or other such frippery, and are easy to navigate. Simple, clean designs are what search engine spiders and search engine users like, because it enables them to get to what they’re looking for; which is – you guessed it – content.
Well-written Meta tags. Meta tags-keyword, description, and title- are important, but they won’t make or break your site. Meta tags are merely part of the overall success strategy. They need to be written with compelling, keyword phrase-heavy content that will make the user click through from the search results page.

Target Audience

Your target audience is looking for you – they just don’t know it yet. In order to help them find you, you need to target who your audience is; in other words, you need to understand who it is that would be looking for the information on your site. Your target audience knows what they want and what they are searching for, and you must know what that is before you can deliver what they want.

Here are some quick and easy steps to help you in this process:

Network. Your friends, family, co-workers, and acquaintances are invaluable resources when trying to figure out who your target audience might be. Ask them questions about what they might search for in your targeted topic, what they’re looking for, what they wouldn’t look for, etc.
Research. Check out your local library and peruse industry trade newspapers or magazines that pertain to your particular topic, or read newspapers online. See what the industry “buzz” is about. You might want to think about subscribing to these resources if your topic is one that relies on current, changing information.
Join. The Internet is an utterly fantastic resource for topic research. Browse around for discussion groups , and see what people are talking about. Look for groups that have a lot of members, and keep track of the subjects discussed.

Now that you know who your target audience might be, you need to choose the keywords and phrases that they most likely will be searching for. In conclusion, remember these three things when developing your target audience internet marketing strategy:

Do your research. Don’t automatically assume that what you search for is what your audience searches for.
Get involved. Man is not an island. Network with people in your field or industry to truly understand what might be in demand, and then you can target your audience accordingly.
Write good content. Easier said than done, but the more time you spend researching key phrases and writing thoughtful content, the more people will be able to find your site.

Keywords and Meta Tags

Keywords are simply targeted words that determine which category your site will be listed under in search engines and directories,as well as words that searchers input to search engines in order to find relevant sites. If you don’t do your homework and select targeted key phrases, you are missing a significant portion of potential traffic.

There are quite a few different places that keywords can go on your page. Some choice places for keywords are:

above your site logo
in the subheadings
headlines
within the paragraph content
meta title
subtitle
within links (anchor phrases)
meta keywords
images (alt tags)

You should try to target no more than two or three related key phrases per page of your site. Any more than that, and the purpose of your targeting efforts will be defeated.

The next place you’ll want to put your keywords is in the meta tags of your site. Meta tags are not scary, and even folks without any HTML experience can definitely learn how to use them.

Depending on what HTML editor you are using, be it Dreamweaver, FrontPage, Home Site,Notepad, etc., you’ll find that you can switch between the design and code screens (this applies to WYSIWIG HTML editors only). What you will want to do is find the HTML code and go to the “head”, or beginning, of your HTML document. There you will find a space for the title, meta keywords, and meta description.

Write Good Content

Compelling content on your website is the essential key to attracting more searchers to your site – but not only more searchers, more relevant searchers who are actually looking for what you’re offering. There are many more factors that search engine spiders look at when indexing a website, but content is the vital foundation on which good rankings are built.

Think of a few sites that you like to visit again and again. What makes you keep coming back? Most likely, it’s compelling, relevant, and timely content. Quality articles, tutorials, tips, etc. compel the reader to come back again, and again, and maybe even email some of their friends to come too. The sites that are consistently top ranked in the search engine results have these things in common when it comes to content:

Interesting,unique content that is well-written.
Links that point the searcher to other parts of the site (and more well-written content). Links feed the spiders and compel better search results accordingly.
Evergreen as well as updated content. “Evergreen” means that the information will not be outdated a month from now.

There are some tips to write good web content

Keywords. You’ve worked hard on these keywords; make them stand out (bold, different font,headlines, etc.)
Clear titles. Make it painfully clear what you are going to talk about. It’s fun to be clever and cute, but it can backfire on you. Search engine spiders just aren’t attuned to puns, cliches, or out of the ordinary slang terms.
Be short and sweet.This is highschool English. Don’t cram as many ideas as possible into one paragraph; rather, use that paragraph to focus on only one idea.
Sales language. Do you enjoy wading through a bunch of sales language to get to the meat of a story? Well, neither will your readers. Don’t inflate your writing with a lot of hot air; keep it down to earth.

These are just general guidelines for writing quality Web content. It’s not something that most people can master overnight, so give yourself some time, practice a lot, read a LOT, and always put yourself in your Web site visitor’s place to make your site as user-friendly as possible.

Title Tags in Search Engine Optimization

The title tag is what shows up at the top of a user’s browser page, and it is also seen in the search results – go ahead, take a look at the top of your browser and you’ll see the title of this page in the blue section at the top.

Most search engines index the contents of the title tag, and actually make it one of the most important factors in the site ranking process. So if you don’t have an optimized title tag, you might be missing the boat as far as rankings are concerned. Plus, it’s not the best user experience to visit a Web site with no title tag, since the title tag is what shows up in the Favorites when a site is bookmarked. No title tag equals the very bland “(Untitled)” and is not a big incentive for people to come back to your site.

Examples of Title Tags

“Dog Tags”. Not good. It’s vague, and not targeted to your specific market.
“Oregon Dog Tags”. Better, but still not as precise as it should be.
“Personalized Embossed Dog Tags-Portland, Oregon”. There! It’s specific, it’s to the point (title tags should be under 200 characters), and targets who is most likely to be looking at your site.

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