This post is an introduction to Search Engine Optimization for the absolute new beginners and there will be further Articles covering each topic in-depth

Search Engine Information (SEO) is the optimization of your Website in order to have your site show up in the Search Engine results pages, obviously the closer to Page 1 of the Results page and the higher up the Results page to Position 1 (and therefore more traffic to your Website) the better!

There are two main aspects to Search Engine Optimization:
On-Page Optimization & Off-Page Optimization

On-Page Optimization:
This is where your Website and the individual pages on your Website are fully optimized for the Search Engine spiders to index your pages and therefore the Search engines knowing the the subject and content of your Website
Optimizing a website primarily involves editing its content and HTML and associated coding to both increase its relevance to specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines.

Off-Page Optimization (also known as Search Engine Marketing):
This is where outside factors from your Website are optimized for better results in the Search Engines.
In a nutshell the more fingers (other websites/directories etc) you have pointing at you the better BUT not all fingers are equal

Example:

If you were an ethical money-lending company, you would not want to have the fingers of loan sharks pointing at you and basically saying ‘hey, we like this guy’ – it would actually be detrimental to your business

Also, some sites and organizations have more ‘Authority’ than others

Example:

If you had a website selling ozone and environmentally friendly recycled packaging, then it would be much better to have a finger pointing at you from a Government’s Environmental Dept Website (effectively endorsing your products) than a small, independent stationers

There are many ways to off-page optimize your website, in fact there are just as many ways to market your website online as there are ways to market a real-world business offline

Here are just a few examples:

• Article Marketing (Article Directories/HubPages/Squidoo etc)
• Backlinking (Directory Submissions/Blog & Forum Commenting etc)
• Social Media Marketing (Facebook/Twitter etc)
• Video/Audio Marketing (YouTube/Podcasting etc)
• Link Exchange (exchanging links with Websites that have complementary products/services)
• Press Releases (new product launches etc)
• Pay Per Click [PPC] Advertising  (Google Adwords, Yahoo Paid Search etc)

More in-depth articles on each Topic to follow …

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