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1. What is SEO? SEO stands for search engine optimization. A search engine is a tool used by Internet users to find website that are relevant to their needs. While there are literally hundreds of search engines available on the Internet today, the three biggest ones are Google, Yahoo and MSN. Search engines work by dispatching spiders to crawl through the World Wide Web and gather information. When a person is looking for specific information, and your website has that information, then the spiders will find it and place it in their search results. The tricky part is understanding what search engines are looking for and being able to put it in the right place on your website. That’s where the optimization part comes in. Search engines are looking for specific keywords amongst all the content on your website and in your html coding. Search engines also take into consideration the number of incoming links you have to your website. 2. Is SEO important? Having strong SEO could make the difference between having a few visitors stumble upon your website every now and again, to having hundreds of visitors go to your website with the direct intention of getting more information or making a purchase. Yeah, it’s important. With more and more people using the Internet to shop online, getting on the first page or two of the search engine results can mean the difference between a failed entrepreneur to becoming a wildly successful businessman. 3. What are text links? Text links are links that contain only text, and are one of the many tools you can use to boost your website’s optimization. The more quality links you have, the better your search engine ranking will be. You want links that will take readers from yours or someone else’s article, ebook or web copy to your website. An excellent tool to generate incoming links is to write copy for online audiences like article directories or blogs, and insert text links in the copy. When you allow free reprints of your copy, provided the links are maintained, you are encouraging links to your website. 4. What are link farms and link exchanges? Search engines don’t accept any type of link. It has to be from a relevant and quality company. That means you don’t want to participate in link farming. If a search engine suspects your links to be lacking, they’ll actually penalize you. Like farming or link exchanging is essentially the process of exchanging reciprocal links with website in order to increase your search engine ranking. A link farm is a webpage that is nothing more than a page of links to other sites. Stay away from link farms. When you generate a link from another site, it has to be relevant and come from a real website. 5. What is duplicate content? When you have more than one web page on your website that contains essentially the same content then you have what’s called duplicate content. Search engines will penalize you for this. You can avoid this easily enough by not publishing the same content in a ton of different locations. If you need help rewriting your content, there are tools online that can help you make it 30%, 40%, even 60% different. 6. How do I find the right keywords? A good place to start would be to make a list of words that you think best describe your products. Customers will use these to find your website. You can also research the supply and demand for those keywords to see how popular they are. Supply means how many other websites are using those same keywords, and demand is how many customers are looking for those keywords. The goal is to find keywords with high demand and relatively low supply. There are many effective and useful keyword tools to help you find this information, and also to generate keyword ideas. 7. How do I optimize my web pages? Put your keywords in the headings, subheadings, domain name, and title of your website. Search engines will look there first. They also look in the content of your web page and generally focus on the first paragraph. Try to get a domain name with your primary keyword included. When you include your keyword in your URL, it tells the search engine spiders immediately what your site is about. A title tag is the line of text that appears on search engine results pages that acts as a link to your site. Put your keyword in the title tag, as it is a crucial element that describes to customers what your page is about. Keeping your title tag brief, descriptive and up to date will help increase the relevance of your site by search engine standards, as well as give your potential visitors a good idea of what they can expect from your website. 8. Do I need to submit your site to the search engines? Nope. Search engine spiders are working 24/7 to collect information from new and old websites alike. Every time you update your website, add content, or change your keywords, the search engines capture the information and record it. 9. What are spiders? Search engine spiders are basically automated programs that scan websites to provide information to search engines for the purpose of indexing or ranking them. 10. How does content help my SEO? Content is one of the best tools to improve your search engine ranking. It’s a great place to emphasize keywords, encourage linking to your site, and increase traffic. The key to content is to make sure you’re offering quality content and you’re updating your website and your content frequently. Content can be provided in many different forms including: blogs, forums and chat rooms, articles, reviews, case studies, reports, tutorials, ebooks and much more.
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