optimizing your website

It is only natural that webmasters continuously crave higher
search engine rankings. After all, the closer your site is to
the first entry in the search engine results page, the more
chances you have of bringing on surfer traffic to your website.

The choice between proper website content composition and
keyword saturation is a continuing dilemma that many web masters
and internet marketers continue to mull over. Should the page of
the site be designed specifically to enhance search engine
results ratings or should the site’s pages contain proper and
relevant content with regards to its existing purpose?

To be given a high search result ranking, the website must
contain relevant information or content. This means that you
can’t just jumble keywords together in a haphazard manner. You
need to have quality content written down to describe your
website and its contents. The search engine examines your
website and all that it contains. The search engine will try to
figure out if the keywords contained in your web pages are
relevant to the user’s search parameters. For example, a user
searches for the word “bird”. The search engine finds two
websites with the word bird in it. The first website adds
descriptions and additional information about the word bird.

The second website has the word bird, but it also contains other
words like tiger, lion, zoo, seal all jumbled together in no
particular order. Armed with this information, the search engine
uses algorithms to determine which of the 2 sites has more
relevance to the user’s query. In this case, the first website
which has a descriptive article about “birds” is prioritized by
the search engine. In addition to being ranked higher by the
search engine, the user is directed to the first website and
finds exactly what he is looking for.

Already, you can see that there need not be a conflict between
search engine optimization and keyword placement.

You need to properly define your keywords in terms of
relevance. The criterion for keyword relevance is based on how
you think a searcher will write down his query. If he is looking
for a pair of shoes, will he use “size 9” or “black size 9” or
“Nike”? The best way to figure things out is to be a customer
yourself. Go to a search engine and search for a single specific
topic or product by using different words. Take note of the
search strings you use and how relevant they are to your target.

Say, you want to buy a CD of Eric Clapton so you are also
searching for a store to buy it from. Do you type in “buy Eric
Clapton” or is it “Eric Clapton CD”? As a searcher do you
have a specific album in mind? Are you searching for Eric
Clapton’s unplugged album? If so, how are you going to search
for it? As the keywords get more specific, the more relevance it
assumes. This is actually a trade-off. Keywords or phrases that
are specifically relevant to the topic at hand tend to bring in
the correct kind of web traffic that you are looking for.

However, because of their specificity, your website will only be
used as a search result if the user’s query specifically matches
your keywords.

Writing content is not as easy as jotting down a sentence or
two. Think of the search engine as an artificial intelligence
that needs to know everything. The more it can read, the better
it can judge the relevance of your content. That being said, a
lot of internet marketers write keyword, rich content articles
with a minimum of 400 words per article. To put it in simpler
terms, a search engine is slow to grasp the whole point.

Having good content in your website is a blessing not only
for search engine optimization, but also for usefulness to the
person browsing your site. If you can make your site useful to
me, I will certainly return to your site to find out if I can
use something else again. People love useful and convenient
things; even people.