Written by-Gardner Alvarez

The proliferation of online retailers and businesses has made it easier than ever to reach a world of prospective consumers. However, it has also made it somewhat more difficult to differentiate one's site from the rest. Search engine optimization, or SEO, makes sites more visible to major search engines. Here are some tips for optimizing your site.

When tweaking their websites for search engine optimization, website owners should choose their keywords with care. Spreading a website's interest too thin will hurt its position on search engine results pages for any particular keyword. Also, search engines may regard a web page stuffed with keywords as a spam page, and remove it from their indexing algorithm.

There are limits to what a webmaster should do to optimize search engine indexing. Some strategies for SEO can be pushed too far, resulting in spam-like, content-free web pages. Not only are these kinds of pages not appreciated by visitors, search engines will discount them in results rankings and can even drop a website, entirely, if it appears to use unethical SEO tactics.







Bold important keywords. Don't overdo it, but keep in mind that search engines crawl the code on your site and pay attention to words that you emphasize. The engines then consider those words in your ranking. Bold words that are important and you'll guide the search engines right to the words you want them to see.

Imagine yourself in the shoes of anyone searching for your website or product. Place yourself in their situation. After you can imagine this, try using some keywords that people would use to search for your specific product of website. This will help boost your search engine optimization.

For better search engine optimization, make use of the h1 tag. Use the h1 tag in your title, and make sure the title is somehow contained in the text. The h1 tag helps you focus directly on keywords. Also, make use of the h2 and h3 tags for more streamlined optimization.

Create seo link builder to attract visitors and search engines to your site. A well-planned resource section makes your site look professional. It also gives you the appearance of being in a position of authority regarding your chosen subject matter. Keeping the resources updated and uncluttered is also important.

Add descriptive text to all hyperlinks that explains what the linked content is about. This makes it easier for visitors and search engines to understand where the link takes them. The link should include keywords that describe the content on the page so that search engines will associate that page with those keywords.

Make sure your keywords are both relevant and specific to site content. A tag containing a more generic keyword phrase (i.e.: Classic Rock Music) will face very heavy competition in the SERP, where as something more specific (i.e.: Rolling Stones Music) will likely get your higher up the list. A higher ranking is one way to increase traffic to your site.

Do not be too general with your keywords. These are what will bring readers to your site, so you want to be specific. If you are talking about backpacking through Tahiti, you do not want your keyword to be "travel." There are thousands of travel sites, and yours will definitely not get the attention it deserves.

Decide whether or not you want to use a link farm. Link farms are sites without content that just have thousands of links. This is generally seen as a negative thing. However, these do appear in search engines, and can help you rise in the ranks. It is your decision as to what is most important: rapport with other sites, or search engine rankings.

Pay-per-click advertisements will not hurt your rankings unless you directly link to a spam site. Crawlers generally do not read the advertisements on your pages, and therefore having certain ads will not add to, or harm, your chances of higher rankings. Remember that your customer may not like the ads, so always give full disclosure.

Search engine optimization is not just about injecting descriptive keywords into your text headlines, article content, product descriptions, and sales copy. Even the file names of your product images, banners, and logos should include the most relevant keywords that will appear in image search results of major search engines.

A great tip to increase search engine optimization on your blog is to use sticky posts. You might have some general tips for your readers that you would like to remind them of. You also might have a favorite post you would like to use as well. You can increase the amount of traffic on those posts and make your blog a better blog in the process.

If you are working with SEO, it is important to remember that SEO is an ever-changing field. The techniques that worked a year ago, may no longer work now. The decline of keyword meta tags is a good example of this. If you want to keep your website near the top of the search engine lists, you have to be constantly educating yourself about the newest factors in SEO.

If your site has an archive of older content, you can boost your search engine rankings by linking back to it frequently when new content is posted. The more links that exist pointing to a specific piece of content, the higher it is rated. Also, having new content linked to old content increases the perceived relevance of the old content.

If there is one word that describes your business and product in a nutshell, then THAT is the keyword that you want to capitalize on. Use this information to develop a comprehensive website that is specifically designed to attract and inform visitors who were directed there by search engine results."

Unless it is absolutely necessary, keep use of Flash to a minimum, especially when designing page menus. Most search engine algorithms are not capable of accurately indexing Flash objects, which can hurt your site's rankings. Instead, opt for JavaScript and CMS as you start to design your menus and embed video.

After you've read and memorized these great tips, you can begin to build or rework your existing website so that it's as search-engine-friendly as possible. If you're putting the right SEO tweaks on your site, the search engine spiders will have no trouble at all finding it and bringing it to the top of the heap.