Making your website search engine friendly By: Deepak Sharma Search engines happen to be one of the fundamental ways that Internet users find web sites. That's the reason a web site with good search engine listings can see a dramatic increase in traffic. Good listing remains atop on the wish list of every website owner. However, it is common knowledge that many web sites do poorly in search engine rankings. Or worst still, they may not be listed at all because they fail to take into consideration how search engines work. Finding out ways and means to get visitors to come to your Web site can be a fairly challenging task. Here comes search engine optimization to bail you out. Search engine optimization means making it sure that your web pages are accessible to search engines and focused in such ways as will improve the chances they will be found. When you focus on search engine optimization, you do not employ tricks or hacks, but instead write your pages so they provide exactly what your customers want whilst simultaneously showing it to the search engines effectively. Here's how you go about it. Choose your target phrase If you wish search engine optimization to work for you, you have to determine one phrase that best describes what your page is all about. This is precisely what is called target phrase. In choosing target phrase, following points should be borne in mind: Your phrase should be an important part of the page information. It should be accurate. One of the commonly tried hacks with search engine optimization is to try to optimize on a phrase that isn't accurate for the content of the page. It is better to simply avoid it. It may backfire. It should be popular . Your target phrase should be one that people are likely to search you with. You can resort to the following search engine optimization tools to better choose your target phrase. Overture is an effective tool for assessing popularity as well as brainstorming ideas for target phrases. Google is highly useful for brainstorming target phrases. Word Tracker will be of your help in assessing popularity and also comparing how the competitors use the target phrase you're after. Evaluate your competition One of the vital things to focus on while developing your web-site presence is to evaluate your competition and rival competitors. Attempt an analysis what's working for them; how they market their products and services, and even evaluate their target phrase and description tags. One thing here may be taken note of that the more popular a target phrase is, the more competition there is likely to be. Sometimes, therefore, it makes sense to target a less popular phrase where you can corner the market rather than aiming for the highest popularity phrase. The following do's on your part will help you in this backdrop. Check out Yahoo and Google to see what shows up when you search for your target phrase. Examine the pages on the first page; analyze where and how they use your target phrase. You can use the "Cached" page option in Google to get your targeted phrase highlighted. Make your website content driven Search engines, especially search giant, Google loves content, content, and content. The more rich content you provide using your keywords or target phrase the better you page rankings will be. The best method employed here is to update your pages 2 to 3 times a week, for an instance Monday, Wednesday and again Sunday. While updating the content regularly, you may work well on focusing on your keyword or target phrase. Here are some significant points to be taken care of: Include your target phrase twice in the meta title tag Ensure your title is "clickable". This is what most of the people see when they search, so keep your title logical and descriptive enough. Include your target phrase in the title or headline for your page. Put that headline using a header tag for your headlines, as search engines quite often weight words in these tags higher. Do not forget to include your target phrase in subheads, using header tags here too. Finally, make sure that you include your target phrase in the first paragraph of your page, and twice if you can. Also include it in other locations on the page, like external links, headlines, and sidebars. Go for your site promotion Make sure that when you announce your page, you use your target phrase in both the link text and any explanatory text. If you run a blog, you will want to blog your page with at least two references to your target phrase. List your site in Link Directories that provide a specific category for your services, these are also effective ways to create inbound links as the more inbound links you have generated to your web-site the higher the page rank you are likely to get in Google. The key consideration to getting your site noticed is to optimize the keywords and use them all over your site. Look for quality link partners that have the same services or products you offer. This is because if you link to a Tupper ware site and you offer fine wine, it isn't going to do you much good as there is no common denominator. List your sites in Link Directories that provide a specific category that best suits your site content and services. Check Your results in top of the rankings If Google or Yahoo don't crawl your site on a periodic basis, then submit your page to them. Wait for a week or so, and then go to those engines and test your search engine optimization target phrase. You should aim to get to the first or second page of search results for your target phrase. Remember that this can not be done in a single shot; it is long, continuous process putting your patience to the test. Search engine optimization strategies at a glance Here is a recapitulation of warranted strategies aimed at facilitating your website topping the search engine rankings. But, be sure you do not give up or falter midway as it is an arduous to achieve yet potentially profitable proposition. Ensure that your website is tested for good load time, dead links and cross-browser compatibility . Netmechanic.com is a good website to do this. Optimize you web site pages . Make sure your top keywords appear in your title, meta tags and content. Provide quality content that have something unique to offer and that have keywords or key phrases people might search to find your site. If you are into selling products, give something away free (The word "free" is one of the top most searched for words on the net). Continually build quality links to your site pages from other well ranked sites on your target search engine. Enlist your top keywords and key-phrases and track your listings/ranking in the top 10 search engines and analyze it in a periodic manner Focus on your web site attractiveness and easy-to-use feature with clear navigation and easy to read layout and fonts. tay focused to cater to your visitors needs - don't throw in a free-for-all links program to just attract traffic. In the long run your website will be recognized for what it is. It's worth sparing the time to make your site more search engine friendly, because some simple changes may pay off with big results. Even if you don't figure in the top ten for your target keywords, you may find a beneficial clue for target keywords you aren't anticipating. Source: Free Articles from ArticlesBase.com About the Author: Deepak Sharma is a Search Engine Optimizer at BlueApple, a Web Design and Development Company with a well connected development infrastructure in India having a strong portfolio of global clientele offering superior web services and solutions at competitive costs. Pay-Per Click The importance of backlinks | seo tips blog | search engine optimization tips | page rank