Search engine optimization

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines. The higher a site “ranks” the earlier it is presented in the search results, and more visit that site gets.

SEO mainly considers how search algorithms work and what people search for. Search engines use crawlers to find pages for their algorithmic search results. Search engine crawlers may look at a number of different factors when crawling a site. Not every page is indexed by the search engines. Distance of pages from the root directory of a site may also be a factor in whether or not pages get crawled.

A good knowledge on how search engines assign Page Ranks is vital to devise the SEO techniques for your site. While there are many complex SEO techniques, a few basic ones would be:

• Get quality inbound links (Search for your target keywords. Look at the pages that appear in the top results. Visit those pages and ask the site owners if they will link to you, they might - especially if you offer to link back)
• Make sure you get your pages get listed in Social bookmarking sites
• Create a descriptive title. Failure to put target keywords in the title tag may cause perfectly relevant web pages to be poorly ranked.
• Create a Site Map that includes all the pages in the site
• Have main keyphrase at the beginning of page title (keyphrase prominence) and keep keyphrases together (keyword proximity)
• Have Keyphrases in Description Meta Tag
• Avoid frames. Search engines may index only the framed content page and not the navigation frame.
• Make sure that all internal pages link to the homepage
• Target keywords should be at least two or more words long (too many sites will be relevant for a single word)

Black hat SEO or spamdexing, employ overly aggressive techniques such as link farms and keyword stuffing. Search engines look for sites that employ these techniques and may remove them from their indexes.