Search Engine Optimization - Basic Information and Advice

SEO or search engine optimization is a technique of website promotion for higher search engine rankings. Many e-commerce and other online businesses engage the services of SEO companies to get SEO advice and achieve a good ranking to attract more web traffic.



Some of the common SEO techniques involve keyword research, building backlinks, submitting a sitemap and so on. Here is some SEO advice and basic concepts that you'll find useful if you are new to this field.



• To find web pages, search engines follow HTML links. Search engine spiders will find well linked pages in your site easily. But those that are not linked properly will fail to get indexed.



• Most search engines cannot navigate through links in Javascript. If you have Javascript links in drop down menus, make sure that you also include text links on the page. Most search engines can also not navigate links in Flash, so make sure you add text links within pages with flash content as well.



• A search engine will not find an orphaned page within your website. An orphaned page is one which is not linked by at least one other webpage. Ensure that every webpage on your site is linked from at least one other page.



• Dynamic pages are ignored by some search engine spiders and may fail to get indexed. A dynamic URL has query strings ("?") that the search engine may choose not to index, especially if there isn’t enough unique content on it.



• If your site is down too often, it will not be ranked well by search engines. If your site is indexed but down when the spider visits it, then your website can even be removed from the search engine’s database. It is therefore important to have a reliable web host so that the site has lesser downtime. But the spider could also pay a visit during a rare period of downtime. This would usually not create a problem if the page is available the next time it is being crawled, but it is a good idea to keep an eye on your indexed pages and re-submit your sitemap if needed.



• Most search engines will limit the pages they are indexing from free websites as they receive a lot of junk submissions from such sites. In fact, web pages from some free sites are not indexed at all. It is highly recommended that you buy a domain name and place it on a reliable, paid service to avoid such hassles. If you are determined to win a lot of web traffic, then you should not look to avoid investing in a paid service.



The last and perhaps the most important bit of SEO advice is on choosing the right search engine optimization company to increase your online marketing effectiveness. Make sure that the company you choose does not employ unethical black hat techniques for short-term ranking improvements. Approach a reputed SEO service provider with a good track record.



For more information on social media marketing and search engine optimization, contact an internet marketing specialist at Wolf21.com.