Quick Guide to SEO - SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the process of improving the number of visitors to a website via search engines.  By optimising your website with targeted specific key phrases used by your target customers, its possible for search engines rank your website more highly than similar competitive sites (that are not optimised).  SEO should be viewed as a component of part of your overall professional internet marketing strategy and ethically used to improve the quality of your visitor experience,  according to search engine guidelines and standards.  The first step is to understand how search engines work....   A search engine is the website that allows anybody to enter a search query for web site information from billions of web pages, files, video, images, music files. Most people have heard of Google, Yahoo, MSN but they're also literally hundreds of other less well known specialist Search Engines also providing similar services.   When you visit search engine, search results are traditionally displayed as blue links with a short description about the website.  The results related directly to the users search query.  Search engines evolved from the creation of large directory projects such as the DMOZ and the Yahoo Business directory. In the early to mid 1990s, search engines started using the web by crawling technology to trawl the ever increasing number of websites being developed. Today search engine results from google, yahoo and MSN also appeared in other minor search engines such as AOL.  80% of people find information on the Internet via a search engine because they are easy to use, flexible and provide a highly relevant links to the Internet.   The next step is to identify the keywords related to your product or service, that your target prospects are typing into search engines.  Only then can begin to effectively strategise and design and optimise a website around your buyers needs and wants.  Key phrase selection is the first and most important step in internet marketing.  Why is this relevant?...  Search engines use mathematical algorithms to compare web pages in order to rank these pages (based on a user search query).  If you make incorrect assumptions (without researching) and target key phrases that don't interest buyers, your website will fail.   Conversely, if you target the right combination of keywords and phrases (before you even design your website), you will maximise your chances of higher search rankings and create an opportunity to sell.  The bigger the market is for a particular product or service, the more competitive the online marketplace is for the related search terms.    Once you have used your market knowledge and keyword tools to validate the search volumes of phrases, make a list, ranked by search volume, of your top 10 phrases.  Invariably there are derivatives of your top ten target phrases.  For instance, if your primary target term is 'mortgage quote uk', you might also identify 'uk fixed rate mortgages' and 'mortgage broker uk' as secondary phrases.  Your prospects will type in hundreds of similar search queries to find a particular product or service.  By creating optimised web pages with relevant content (that include these phrases), you maximise your chances of achieving increased search engine traffic.   You will need to continually update the list and check your site logs and statistics and test using keyword tools. From this feedback, by checking which search phrases and entry pages were used to enter your site over time, you can easily see how successful your optimisation efforts are going.  Key phrase selection should literally dictate the choice of domain naming for new sites, website design; navigational structure, unique selling points and linking strategy.  Always add a couple of optional fields in your Contact Form to get feedback form your website visitors; 'which search engine did you use to find our site?' and 'what search term did you use?'   Assuming you have a product or service that has some unique selling points, you need analyse your online competition so you can optimise your USP's effectively.  From an internet point of view you need analyse what other websites have achieved relative to your own website. For the first step is to identify who they are and make a list. This is simple enough by entering all of your primary and secondary key phrases into the major search engines and building up to a list. Of similar key phrases are usually bring up the same websites and you will very quickly understand what do you need to knock off the to the search engine to succeed. Updating this list on a regular basis is as important as the initial analysis. By obtaining feedback from search results you can constantly re-analyse competitors in terms of additional links or content they have added, or analyse how they have restructured and reorganised their website have to make it more search engine friendly.   If you haven't already chosen your domain name for your new website a good place to start is NetworkSolutions. This is the largest registry of of domain names on the Internet and provides a service to check domain name availability. This is a reputable company that allows you to move an existing domain name settings (DNS) freely and ensures your privacy is also protected. It is preferable to choose a name which incorporates the primary search term or phrase you are trying to achieve high rankings for.  Your new domain name has to reflect what you are selling or your company vision. There has to be no confusion in the minds of the user.  In particular, if it is a type of site where you want repeat business, the name site has to be easily remembered, spelt - so the shorter the better.  If there is not usually a valid reason why you need dozens of domain names in order to sell the same product or service, then don't... these are known as splash sites or doorway pages and are disliked by search engines to view this as a form of spamming. If the content of each website is unique and completely different, then separating by topics or localised geographic content makes perfect sense. Just remember it takes twice as long to promote and build and manage twice as many sites. Search engines 'search bots' also automatically interrogate the WHOIS database to identify the owner on the website. Therefore, when you register your domain name, it is sensible to reveal your contact details on WHOIS database if you have nothing to hide.   The most important ranking factors search engines employ is an analysis of the quality and relevance (and to a lesser extent the sheer quantity) of the text on any given webpage and collectively the website.   We would recommend not over analysing a web page too much using software tools.  Instead, put yourself in the mind of your prospects user and invest more time in creating an interesting, and informative, exciting and most importantly original content.  Try and be obvious; you must tell the user what you think he wants to hear (based on your market research) as a users attention span when they hit your home page lasts for about 4 seconds before the click back in their browser and go on to the next one in the list.  Therefore, use bullet points and simple sales messages or offers to summarise unique selling point sites. Remember, most web user skim websites until they decide they have landed on the site they want to learn more from.  make sure you are also original - write in such a way that you are not or copying other web pages (or rewording). Duplicating content from other websites is a huge no no as it attracts duplication penalties from search engines or may risk having your site banned altogether. Writing content is the most difficult area of of what search engine optimisation and web design.   When targeting a certain keyword or keyphrase is essential that this appears within the text of the page at least once. If you insert this keyword or phrase too many times you run the risk that search engines view it as 'keyword stuffing' (which is a form of spamming). The ideal amount should by no more than three times per page. When optimizing a webpage actually this may depend on the volume of text on the page itself - the more text (words) on a page, the more times you can justifiably make reference to your key phrases. By using any number of free online tools to measure the exact percentage a keyphrase appears relative to the other words of page you can make simple judgments regarding what whether or not the page is correctly optimized. This simple principle is known as a keyword density. Having an effective linking strategy is a critical part of search engine optimisation.  Search engines measure 'inbound links' by the sheer volume (link popularity), link quality (basis of the webpage and website your link is posted from), link type and frequency of links added over time.  A website with no inbound links will never rank higher than one with lots of links from other good quality sites.  Implementing a reciprocal linking program requires patience, belief, tenacity and a very good understanding of the factors search engines used to rank web site links.  Depending upon the existing 'quality' of your own website will dictate how you implement a linking strategy.  Linking strategy is so important from the outset when launching new websites.