Weblog Bucks

Google and other search engines are the gateway to your business, and getting high page ranks somewhere in the first page of listings, is important for driving business to your site. There are companies out there that will promise you the moon, the stars, and, by the way, page rankings so high that you’ll cheerfully pay them hundreds of dollars every month for their services.

Getting organic web traffic is usually one of the most desirable goals in web promotion. This definition means when someone types in a search engine a word or phrase, these are the websites the search pulls up. This is different than the paid ads you find to the right column, which can be a very expensive route to go. Here’s what search engine optimization comes down to:

1. Content, content, content. You need real content on your web, this is content that has real meaning to real people, not just stuffing a bunch of keywords that make no sense. Search engines use programs called web crawlers or web spiders that list web sites. The one thing those web crawlers looks for is content. They figure out if a site has content by tracing keyword phrases. This is why search engine optimization usually starts by picking keywords and writing content around them; many web site marketing experts advocate writing a high density of the same keywords, but doing too much of this can actually work against you.

2. Links back to your site from other’s sites provide validation. The more links particularly links that relate to your site’s content, the higher your page ranking will be. Methods to get link backs range from link exchanges with other websites in related topics, to writing articles about the topic you’re dealing with, to social bookmarking sites and such.

3. New and fresh content. You can’t just post a page and expect to keep the same page ranks. Your website should have new content. This is important not just for web crawlers, but for human visitors too. If they can anticipate to read new and interesting material at least three times a week preferably more, they’ll keep returning. It takes an average of seven visits before someone takes action such as post on a forum or purchase a product.

4. Web layouts that make sense. Your web site should have clean navigational links, your front page should have links to everything else on your site.

5. Text means everything in web content. Search engine crawlers ignore Javascript, they disregard graphics, and until recently, they couldn’t read text in Flash animations. If the search engine spiders can’t read it, it doesn’t help your page rankings.

The real trick for long haul success to search optimization is to ensure your website is as easy to use as possible. Make it simple to navigate for visitors who want to read about your site and content that makes them come back.