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Search Engine Optimization And Internet Marketing

By Jim Eastman

Republish: EasyPublish™ Published: 08Mar2011 Word count: 3358 Viewed: 187 time(s) Get Free Content For Your Site

Internet marketing (also called eMarketing, online marketing, or Web advertising) is the promotion of products or services via the Internet. Search engines are the principal methods Internet users use to locate web sites, and have become the most important tool driving Internet Marketing. Search engine optimization is the procedure used in optimizing an online site so as to get a high ranking in the results returned when you use an online search engine (like Google or Yahoo).

Search engine optimization (or SEO) is definitely an essential technique to increase targeted traffic to your website and is vital to achieving success online. There are two primary components to SEO: "on page" and "off page" . Both involve the use of "Keywords."

Keywords are the most important SEO factor for every search engine - in fact they're what search strings are compared against. Keywords are important since they guide people in locating your website. They are the basis for any successful search engine optimization (SEO) project.

When planning your search engine optimization, always begin with keyword research. The "trick" is to find a keyword or phrase that has at least a fair amount of search volume, but little competition. To research the former, the Google Keyword Tool is a great resource.

For the latter, go to the Google search engine and type in your keyword. The number of web page results will display just below the search box. However, if your "keyword" consists of more than one word (that is, if it's a "keyword phrase") then the number of results displayed can be quite misleading.

For instance, if you're searching on "dog training" (without the quotation marks) the results will include all those web pages indexed in Google that have the word "dog" or the word "training" anywhere on the page. A page could be about "dog food" or "horse training" neither of which is relevant to your keyword phrase in question.

A better indication is to search on the keyword phrase enclosed in quotation marks. Your results will display those web pages that have the entire phrase "dog training" somewhere on the page. This will give you a much better idea of your actual competition.

Search engine optimization involves two primary areas: "on page" and "off page" optimization.

On page optimization requires building your web page around a particular keyword (or keywords), so that when the search engines "spider" your web page, they index your site as being relevant to that keyword. You must get this right, otherwise your site won't rank at all.

How keywords are placed on your page is extremely important, not only in regard to quantity, but to quality as well. Having your keywords in the page title, headings, and first paragraph , is much better than having many keywords toward the bottom of the page.

Off page search engine optimization entails all optimization done outside of your website, and has to do with links pointing to your site. It's vital to properly backlink to your website, to use the keywords, key phrases, and variations on those phrases that you want your site to rank for, in the anchor text (the text a visitor clicks on that links to your site).

Some other important strategies when back-linking to your website are to link from high ranking sites, from sites relevant to your keyword, and to get one-way inbound links (as opposed to reciprocal links). "Deep linking" (linking to pages on your site other than your home page) is important as well.

But just how do you get back links to your site? Leaving comments on blogs is one good way. You can also comment on forums (especially those relevant to your keyword) and include a link to your site in your profile. Most forums will allow you to do this, but be sure to read their terms of service, and do not violate them.

But the very best way to back link to your site is through article marketing. Write an article about your topic and submit it to some of the many article directories on the Internet, like EzineArtilces.com. In most cases, you may not link to your website in the body of your article, but rather in the " Resource Box" you include after the article.

Visit several article directories, read their terms of service, and make sure that when you submit your articles you vary the article each time. Do not submit exact copies of the same article to multiple article directories.

Another great way is to create websites on other servers and include a link back to your site. There are endless possibilities. Just search Google for "free website" (in quotes) and you'll get something like 23 million hits!

Many of these services allow you to create your own website on their server for free. Use your keyword in the site title, and do all you can to optimize the new site for the keyword you want your own site to rank for. Then include a few back links to your primary website. Link to the home page and a few of your internal pages, but - don't overdo it.

Internet Marketing and search engine optimization are certainly challenging, not to mention a whole lot of hard work! You would be wise to hire a virtual secretary to outsource most of that work. But there may come a time when you decide to utilize expert services to beat your competition in the keyword placement race.

There are lots of such search engine optimization services out there. Do your research and select a company that can show you results, and is not afraid to address your questions with straight answers. If you find yourself getting evasive answers, you should look elsewhere.

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