Search Engine Optimization For A Better Website

Search engines operate in a strange new world. Search engines are visualized as spiders crawling through cyberspace. They pick up "keywords" and add them to their lair of identifying words. They use these words to direct searchers to sites. Search engines operate by artificial intelligence--different from ours. The following tips are designed to help you bridge that gap and help your business gain a valuable friend in these search engine "spiders."

When using SEO on a page that has images, be sure to make ample use of the <alt> tag. Search engines cannot view images and so cannot index them. However, if you include relevant text in the <alt> tag, the search engine can base it's guess about the image on that text and improve your site's ranking.

To really push your business up through the rankings, you should think about using long-tail keywords and longer phrases that are specific to what people are searching for. The web spiders are very friendly to longer keywords, and you can use fewer of these throughout your content, allowing it to appear more natural and to come across as reader-friendly.

To learn SEO, the best place you can go is to blogs and forums and read advice from real people just like you, who have built their businesses from the ground up. Those so-called gurus of the game are all trying to sell you something, so you should avoid those guys. Stick with people who started out just like you. That's where you'll find the best advice.

Knowing the value of different domain endings is a good way to help with search engine optimization. For instance, focus your efforts on trying to get links from .edu websites, by writing content tailored to them or making them aware of your site, as search engines give them more weight than other endings, like .com or .org.

If you operate a WordPress blog, the best way to handle SEO is to grab one of the server's many plug-in options. Instead of looking around and reading articles, you can handle everything on-site. A lot of the difficult steps of the past have been automated on a site like WordPress, so tinkering with the site a little bit, can turn you into an SEO aficionado.

To keep your website focused on one thing, think about removing what you do not really need. Your goal is to sell a product by giving content about it and about related topics. Anything that seems off topic can be removed. You do not want your audience to be distracted.

Live by the rule that no page on your site should be more than two clicks away from your home page. Search engines hate deep links and often times ignore them. As well, by sticking to this rule, you help guarantee that all of your pages get to enjoy some residual page rank value from your home page.

We hope these tips have made this immaterial landscape in which search engine "spiders" operate clearer to you. Leading them to your website will give your business a tremendous boost. Search engines connect your business with customers. Study these tips--and much more information online--and your bottom line will definitely benefit.