Make Money Online “How to”

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is a term used to
describe techniques used to drive traffic to your website
from search engines. Most of the web traffic you get will
come from the three search engines with the largest number
of indexed sites Google, Yahoo, and MSN. If you want to
succeed in marketing your products online, you need to make
sure that your customers can find you.

Keywords

Most visitors to your site will find you by typing keywords
into a search engine. These may be a single word or a
phrase. By putting content on your site that contains
relevant keywords, you have a better chance of having Web
surfers find your site.

How Search Engines Work

Very briefly, here’s how the process works

Search engines have programs that go out through the World
Wide Web looking at content. These programs are referred to
as bots, spiders, or crawlers. Even the most advanced
search engine doesn’t have every web page crawled yet;
according to estimates, only about half of the 20 billion
pages online have actually been indexed.

Once a particular page has been crawled by a search
engine’s spiders, it is indexed. Indexing means that the
page has been added to that search engine’s database. Web
crawlers will revisit your pages to see whether they have
been updated since the last visit, so it’s important to
keep feeding your site with fresh content.

When you type a search query into a search engine, the
process is really quite impressive. The search engine
software goes through all of its pages to find a match for
the word or phrase you submitted. The more narrow your
query, the more specific your results will be.

The search results you are given are not just pulled out of
the air (figuratively speaking); they are ranked according
to a formula known as the search engine’s algorithm. The
specific factors that a search engine uses to rank sites is
a closely-guarded secret; the best anyone has come up with
are strategies that seem to work to get a higher ranking.

High Ranking and Web Traffic

If you want to attract a steady stream of traffic to your
site, you need to get a high search engine ranking. SEO
techniques will help you to reach that goal by helping you
to determine which keywords people are most likely to be
using to find information relevant to your niche market.
When you make a point of putting out content with these
well-chosen keywords in it, you have a better chance of
attracting site visitors who are interested in what your
site has to offer, and motivated to buy from you - now.

A key component of SEO is to track where the traffic coming
to your site is coming from and what kinds of keywords
Internet users are using to find you. If you can’t track
your results, you have no idea what techniques you are
using that are the most effective, and that is an important
aspect of Search Engine Optimization.

To Your Success,
Harry

Getting organic (free) traffic to your website is one of
the keys to having a successful Internet business. But how
are you going to let Internet users know that you are open
for business if they don’t know what your web address (URL)
is?

There are many strategies you can use to drive traffic to
your website, but the most basic one is to get your site
indexed by search engines. You can wait until your site is
visited by search engine bots, the web crawlers that go out
through the Internet to gather information on a regular
basis. Your site should be crawled in this manner
eventually, but it will take time; you may not want to wait
weeks before your site is indexed.

To give your site a boost, you do have the option of
submitting it to search engines yourself. You will want to
make sure that it appears on the three most popular ones,
since they account for the majority of traffic online.

The "Big Three"

The three search engines that account for the most web
traffic are:

• • Google
• • Yahoo
• • MSN

In addition, there are many other search engines, and it is
possible to get a high ranking on one of them even if you
don’t have a Top 10 ranking on one of the Big Three. This
may help you improve your site ranking on one of the more
well-known search engines, as well.

Submitting Your Site to Search Engines

You can submit your site to a number of search engines
yourself, but this option will be quite time-consuming.
Here’s how it works: Visit the search engine web site you
are interested in and look for the "Submit Your Site" page.
You will probably see an online form that will ask you for
the URL of your site and a brief description of its
contents. Be sure to include appropriate keywords in your
description. It may take a few weeks before your site
appears in the listings, so make a note on your calendar to
check to make sure it has been included at a later time.

If you don’t want to use time that would be better spent
building your business on this task, you have a couple of
options:

1. Use a free submission service
2. Hire a consultant to do it for you

Free Submission Service

A free submission service will submit your site information
to many different search engines, including the Big Three.
In return for the service, you will be asked for your
contact information. Be prepared to receive a number of
special offers from the submission service after it has
performed this task for you, though.

Hire a Consultant

You can also hire a company to submit your URL to search
engines on your behalf. They can advise you about ways to
get a better ranking, which is key to driving traffic to
your site. If you have the financial resources to pay the
fee, this method may be the most effective way to get your
site indexed sooner.

To Your Success,
Harry