Everyone with a website wants to be the master the search engines. That way one person could have their website at the top of every search that’s conducted. Sounds great, but it’s more than a little unrealistic. Besides, we don’t want everyone to land on our site… we want warm prospects, looking for what we offer. Search engines will already do that for you, but you have to understand “The Big Picture.”

Before I continue, I have to let you know that I am only a caveman. I just stepped out of the Stone Age and into the Information Age, so my answers might seem simplified. However, I don’t want you to discount them because they are simple… the best solutions always are.

The search engine exists for the sole purpose of connecting a searcher with what they’re searching for. That’s all. Since customers hate to be pointed to a site that doesn’t give them what they want, each misdirected hit causes the searcher to lose faith in that search engine. So, the search engines must make sure the customer gets to the correct site. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) does that. Here’s how to make it work for you.

Most of the search engines are only programs which scour websites to see what they offer, then send people there that are searching for that information. Some of the things checked are the URL (page address), content, and (fading quickly into extinction) metadata. Since customers use certain words and phrases in their searches, the search engines look for these “keywords” in these scans. If you keep keywords in mind when putting your site together you can make yourself rank high in their searches.

The URL is checked for relevance. If the title doesn’t match the content, your rank will go down. Also, words strung together in a title like thisisthebesttitleavailable.com are seen as one word by most search engines. BAD JUJU. Stay away from this if you can. Better: this-is-the-best-title-available.com. Putting searched keywords in your title separated by dashes will score very high in the engines ranking formulas (i.e.: widget-source.com or widget-discount-store.com). (hiring a professional can help a lot here)

Content is what you say to your visitors. The information put out in your website should be all about widgets if that’s what you sell. Since you can’t predict what exact phrase will be used by your buyers, you will want a lot of different variations of appropriate keywords used in your site. There are a number of places on the internet to find which ones work, like http://www.alexa.com. (Hiring a pro here will help too)

Metadata is basically textual information about your site which the visitors never see. It’s strictly there for the earlier models of search engines and, since it has been abused, is fading into non-existence. Because of this, I wouldn’t stress too much on it.

I hope this helps you get “The Big Picture.”

If you need more help with establishing or developing any aspect of your online business, contact Don Hatton a proud member of the Daricca Group’s team of website design professionals.