Beginner Internet Marketing Center

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

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Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of making your website or blog "search engine friendly" by using keywords, niches, and most of all original content. By having a targeted niche, using targeted keywords and your own original content, the search engines will find and index your site making it easier for people searching the web to find your website or blog.

Making your site "search engine friendly" involves structure within your website or blog such as the links on the left side of this page containing the name of each page which are targeted "keywords", although they are broad keywords, nonetheless when Google indexes this site they will find more targeted information on each page.

There is controversy throughout the internet right now as to whether using "meta tags" on your website helps your site get indexed in Google or that it does not matter because Google is concerned with your content. If you go to any website on the internet with your browser, go to "view" and then down to "page source", this is where the "meta tag" is located. For example, below this is the "meta tag" for the first page of this website.

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">

<html>

<head>

<title>Beginner Internet Marketing Center</title>

I choose to use "meta tags" on my websites, along with original content. As you learn and work with your website or blog more you can test and try different strategies to see what works best for you and the niche you have chosen.

WORDS OF CAUTION

Black Hat SEO - Means "the bad guys" like in the movies. The bad guy always wore the "black hat". Do not use black hat SEO tactics on your websites or blogs. Don't start your business and web presence on the internet in an unethical manner. While it may or may not get your website indexed sooner, it will eventually be banned by Google and believe me you need Google on your side. Some of the practices of black hat SEO are:

** Keyword Spamming or Keyword Stuffing - using keywords (many, many keywords) that are not relative to your site or its content.

** Invisible Text - putting lists of keywords using a white color on a white background, hoping to attract Googles indexing robots.

Grey Hat SEO - Using these tactics means you are borderline between ethical and unethical. Do you want to take the chance of ruining your reputation by walking that tightrope? I don't think you would and it will not benefit you in the long run. There are some "Grey Hat SEO" practices that are sometimes acceptable such as:

** If you have a membership site or forum that needs to be protected by cloaking links. Again it's borderline and if possible find another way of protecting your "Members Only" areas. Check with the search engines to see if you are within the guidelines.

** Link popularity by using paid links on your site just for the increase whether they are relevant to your content or not. This will only hurt you and your credibility in the long run.

** Duplicate Content - I cannot stress enough of how important it is to use your own and original content. DO NOT copy and paste content from another site and use as your own. You will be BANNED and possibly shut down completely. There are some instances where using other content on your website is acceptable, such as if you find a related article on EzineArticles.com. You are allowed to use any of these articles on your site as long as the credits, links and authors information remains intact. While it is acceptable, it does not give you quite the "brownie points" you want as using your own original content.

White Hat SEO - Is a matter of using optimization to have your site indexed by the search engines (i.e. appropriate keywords, targeted niche and rich original content).

** While attractive on a site, using "drop-down boxes" on a website makes it hard for the search engines to crawl the content of your site. It is best to structure your site with your links in full view.

** Using "frames" within a website is also NOT A GOOD IDEA. When the indexing robots come to your site, they cannot read content within frames. When they reach the code on your site that indicates frames, they will stop and move on, thus your site has been bypassed all together.

** Reciprocal Linking - While having links to other sites on your website is good to help with your rankings and being able to be found, getting random links just because they are links will not help you at all. Be selective and only put links on your site that are relative to your content.

Dan Thies who is known as the "keyword guru" has just released his "2009 Edition of The SEO Fast Start Book" which is a free download. Dan teaches beginner and advanced search engine optimization courses.