But for those who do not know about SEO yet, this article is for you...
After reading this module, you will have learned about SEO and be able to answer the following:
1. Why web content writers need to know about Search Engine Optimization
2. What does SEO mean?
3. When do we know a web site is search engine optimized?
4. How important search engines are for your web site?
5.How important web site traffic for business web sites?
6. How to optimize your web site in the eyes of search engines?
*On-page Optimization
-Work on web site meta-tags
-Work in your content
-Embed keywords in your web site title
-Embed keywords in your content including in content title
-Optimize Images ( alt tag)
-Link Trading ( Exchange Link)
*Off-page Optimization
-Blogging and blog commenting
*blogging
*blog commenting
-Search Engine Submission
-URL/Website Submission to Online Directories ( Directory Submission)
-Article Submission
-Micro-blogging
7. How Search Engines Work
Important concept to remember:
A search engine like Google calculates web site's authority based on:
Content – the value of your web site content ( Done On-page).
Back Links – the value of your back links or the links that are pointing towards your website ( Done off-page).
Why web content writers need to know about Search Engine Optimization
As a web content writer, it is very important that you know about Search Engine Optimization. Most online clients who own web sites for business usually hire writers who are knowledgeable in this field. SEO is very essential for web site promotion – online business promotion.
What does SEO mean?
Search engine optimization is a strategy that must be employed to every web site to increase its presence in the eyes of search engines like Google, Yahoo!, Msn.
When do we know a web site is search engine optimized?
When your web site appears on the first page of a search engine results when an online query is done using a particular keyword, then we can say that your web site is optimized in the eyes of a search engine with the keyword used.
For instance, when an Internet user want to buy shoes online. Using a search engine, he would type a key phrase “buy running shoes” on the search field. If your web site is highly optimized with that keywords, it will probably land on the first page of a search engine results page. When an Internet user sees your web site, he would click on it. In other words, better opportunity for your online business.
How important search engines are for your web site?
Search engines play a very important role for your web site to generate traffic ( traffic pertains to the quantity of visitors your web site can have). In fact, up to 80% of most web sites' generated traffic are driven by search engines. In other words, if your web site generates 1 million traffic ( visitors) in a day, more or less 800,000 visitors or 80% of that could come via search engines ( by the way, search engines are web sites which primary purpose is to crawl billions of web pages published in the World Wide Web and present them to internet users by ranking the results according to relevance to the keywords typed – the higher the relevance, the higher the rank).
How important web site traffic for business web sites?
You established your web site with the purpose of generating sales and profit through traffic. No matter how great your web site design is if it does not generate substantial traffic then it is just useless. Search Engine Optimization plays an important role in generating traffic.
How to optimize your web site in the eyes of search engines?
There are a number of techniques to optimize a web site in the eyes of search engines. However, these can be divided into two categories: (1) On-page Optimization (2) Off-page Optimization.
On-page Optimization – is a term used to describe when you do optimization tasks in your site itself. Simple tweaks, edits in your web site could contribute a lot to optimize it in the eyes of Search Engines. What are these tweaks?
1.Work on web site meta-tags
Meta-tags are codes embedded to web page source codes. This helps your web site to be easily recognized by search engine spider or crawler. A search engine spider is a program or algorithm use by search engines to crawl billions of web pages in the web and will determine what your web site is all about.
2.Work in your content
Your content is one of most important factors used by search engines in judging your web site's authority or importance. The more substantial your site content is the higher the level of relevance search engines give and the better opportunity to land in the higher position on the Search Engine Results Page (SERP).
To have a more substantial web site, take consideration on the following:
Embed keywords in your web site title – is very important to embed competitive keywords in your title as this is crawled certainly by spiders. Search engine keyword optimization is necessary.
Note: keyword research is another topic that needs critical thinking and you will learn this when you qualify for training.
Embed keywords in your content including in content title – there are lots of free tools in the Internet which you can use to find competitive keywords in your niche. Find those keywords that are being used by Internet users when performing search query. Use the appropriate keywords in your content title, embed relevant keywords (based on keyword research) in your content by putting 1 or 2 keyword phrases in the beginning paragraph, another keywords in the middle content, and in the last part of the content. Remember to use keywords at most 5% of the whole content. This is to avoid of being judged as a spam web site which can decrease your authority in the eyes of search engines.
3.Optimize Images ( alt tag)
Search engines spiders are not capable ( or have a difficulty) of crawling images so images are not usually indexed. To solve this, images are backed-up by alt-tags. These are embeded to codes in images to provide descriptions which spiders or crawler can understand ( During training, you'll be learning about alt tags).
4.Link Trading ( Exchange Link)
Though having a number of substantial links can't be done in a day, link trading is also an important task for you to do. This is done by exchanging links to other web sites. When your web site is linked to powerful web sites ( those sites considered by Search Engines authoritative) your site recieves a portion of such authority through the links you made. Please note that having many links does not necessarily mean you can get such huge authority from them as this could also demirit your web site reputation when you link to web sites that are irrelevant to yours – linking to spam web sites. Spam sites are those site published by some ( in fact many) that are aimed to just increase their popularity in SERP not to give benefit for users.
There are web sites which link to yours naturally especially when they find your web site relevant to them and when they find your site genuine. Please note that organic linking ( natural linking) is imperative.
To have an effective link exchange campaign, it is important that you establish an online reputation—get acquainted with other people in the virtual community in your niche ( your web site topic) by participating in forum, leave comment to other website, participate in online discussion, etc.
Off-page Optimization – like on-page, off-page optimization is an important tool to optimize your web site. This is done off-site. In other words, doing web site promotional campaign outside your web site but give a significant contribution for your web site authority in the eyes of search engines.
What are these off-page optimization strategies ( not all techniques included in this module)
1.Blogging and blog commenting
Blogging is done by establishing blogs which relate to your web site. Writing for blogs allows you to put links that point to your web site ( backlinks). This contribute traffic for your web site and that is when a blog reader click those links and directed to your site. Please note that blogs is usually indexed by search engines easily as these are regularly updated by bloggers compared to regular web sites.
Blog commenting or posting comments to other web site related to yours can also be a source of substantial traffic. Because, when you post a comment, you have the option of embedding your web site's link that point to your web site. That means traffic for your web site when other interested readers click your links. It is important to post a comment that is relevant to the topic discussed. Else, your comment might be rejected by the blog owner—losing the chance to create a back links for your web site.
2.Search Engine Submission
This also helps your web site to be recognized by search engines. This is done by submitting your web site to search engines ( ideally to hundreds of search engines).
In general, when you submit to search engines, they require you to submit your web site details like the following:
Your Website's URL (e.g. http://www.mysite.com)
Your Website's Title
Web site Description
3.URL/Website Submission to Online Directories ( Directory Submission)
Some web sites used for searching information are based in directories ( Dmoz, Yahoo directories). You need to submit your web site information to the category it belongs. The data web site onwers provide are used to match to online queries done during Internet search and rank them according to relevance.
4.Article Submission
Article submission to article directories ( e.g. Ezine, Article Dashboard) allows you to promote your web site. The process involves writing an optimized contents related to your website and the products or services you promote and submit them them to high-ranking article directories. A lot of internet users go to these directories to find information and when they found your article substantial, they will most like click the link you have put and drive traffic for your web site.
5.Social Networking
Registering to social networking sites ( e.g. Facebook, MySpace) is another yet effective optimization tools. A lot of people are going to these sites for socialization but for business oriented individuals this means a thing apart from that – they think social sites a big opportunity for web site promotion for two major reasons: (1) Social site users do regular updates and (2) social sites rank high in search engine ranking.
6.Micro-blogging
This is the shorter version of regular blogging yet very effective in weaving links. Usually it takes just a hundred-word content to be able to post in micro-blogging sites ( e.g. Twitter, plurk, jaiku).
How Search Engines Work
