What Is Search Engine Optimization?

The process of increasing the amount of visitors to a Web site by ranking high in the search results of a search engine. The higher a Web site ranks in the results of a search, the greater the chance that site will be visited by a user. It is common practice for Internet users to not click through pages and pages of search results, so where a site ranks in a search is essential for directing more traffic toward the site.

Why is it important to have my website optimized?

We all know the importance of having a Web site rank well in search engine results for searches on specific keywords/phrases. If your Web site doesn’t have a page appearing in the top 10 search engine result positions, the chances of someone clicking on your listing, and actually visiting your site, drop dramatically. If you’re not in the top 20 you have almost no chance that someone will scan through that far to find your page.

Does optimization require maintenance?

URL ranking results change week-to-week due to competition, so maintaining a top ranking requires constant keywords monitoring and information rework. Search Engine Optimization never rests, much like your competition.

What steps are involved in optimizing my site?

Step 1. Identify Your Competition
View competitor websites and see which products they appear to target; which search phrases do they have rankings for?

Step 2. Identify Link Partners
Link tracking allows you to identify and choose possible sites that you will want as link partners once your site is content-rich and optimized. If these sites link to your competition, then you want them to also link to you!

Step 3. Identify Keywords
It is critical that we understand the search terms and keywords used to locate your site as a part of a search engine query. To help in this keyword analysis effort we offer advice and tools to research the competition and query history information available through several sources.

Step 4. Optimize your site to contain your keywords at the correct count and density with the goal of your site appearing in each search engine's top 10 results

Step 5. Submit your optimized site to the Search Engines

Is optimization the same for all search engines?

A lot of people like to think search engines aren’t that different. They index the same Internet, and they return mostly the same results, right? Not at all. A new study shows once again that search engines index mostly unique pages and rank common ones completely differently.

Pennsylvania State University and Dogpile.com studied the overlap in results that the four major search engines (Google, Yahoo!, MSN Search, and Ask Jeeves) provided.

The study used 485,460 unique searches in July 2005. The researchers only looked at the total results and found this information:

    * 84.9% results were unique to one search engine.
    * 11.4% results were shared by any two search engines.
    * 02.6% results were shared by three search engines.
    * 01.1% results were shared by the top four search engines.

It’s actually amazing how little agreement there is between search engines. It has a lot of implications. Primarily, people should be concerned because marketers can miss out on huge market segments. By focusing on only one search engine, you can miss a lot.

    * Google misses 70.8% of first page results on other engines.
    * Yahoo! misses 69.4% of first page results on other engines.
    * MSN Search misses 72.0% of first page results on other engines.
    * Ask Jeeves misses 67.9% of first page results on other engines.

This shows how completely different search engines are. Each has its own personality when it comes to evaluating and delivering the web’s most important content. Therefore, Weblogic.com optimizes your site for each one of the top 10 used Search Engines.

Do I have to change my hosting providers?  

Probably not, unless your website is frequently down, which can seriously cripple your search ranking. It is also recommended that your site have a dedicated IP address. If your host is unwilling to provide one, you may decide to switch to a more cooperative website host provider.

Do I have redesign my site?

Most likely, you will not have to redesign your site. However, one thing to remember is that you're not only designing to appeal to your visitors, but also to the search engine spiders. There are a few principles to keep in mind while designing your site to be searchable. Ineffective site design includes lack of clear navigation, poorly designed frames, and large,load-intensive graphics. Search engine spiders can actually be blocked from crawling sites that are not well-designed, so having a well designed site is a major part of Search Engine Optimization.