Search Engine optimization or SEO is the method of setting up your website so that it ranks well for particular keywords within the organic search results of major search engines, including Google, Yahoo, MSN and Bing. Contrasting with paid search marketing, which requires you to pay for every click sent to your website from a search engine, traffic sent to your site from a search engine’s organic results is free.

In the early good days of SEO the process of gaining top ranking for keywords was much easier than it is today. In those days search engine algorithms were easy to crack. All you had to do was to include the keyword you desired to rank for in the title tag of your web page and that keyword throughout the content of your page, and chances were you would rank within the top ten results of your favorite search engine. Over the years search-engine algorithms have become increasingly complex.

In 1996 or so search engines became a very popular tool for all sorts of information. Long before Google and Yahoo became popular, search engines like AltaVista and InfoSeek were pioneers at providing search results to users within a fraction of a second. As the World Wide Web grew at a remarkable pace, the popularity of AltaVista and InfoSeek started to wane. Other search engines came and went but no company has had more of an impact on search engine marketing than Google.

If you have a website then you already have an Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy , and know the benefits that a well optimized website can bring.

If not, then here are 5 reasons you necessitate to consider an SEO strategy for your company website

1. People search for information in different ways, and the words you would use to find your products or services, might not be the same words that your visitors would use.

2. Your web site should be in the top ten results of the most popular search engines, as most people only trust the first few results on the Search Engine Results Pages, if not your target audience may never hear of your website or company.

3. By optimizing your website, and ensuring that each page is relevant, and what a visitor would expect to find, you can increase the likelihood of people visiting your website.

4. If you want to increase conversions, you’ll want to have significant content that people will want to read. A well optimized site will attract visitors and keep them interested.

 5. By generating new sales and profit, you can help to increase your market share, and so become more of an authority in your industry, which will help offline sales and brand awareness as well.

Google’s Caffeine update hasn’t been revealed yet and no one knows which search engine optimization techniques will remain relevant in the near future. However, before you start experimenting with “Caffeine-ready SEO” strategies, there are some things that you can do to increase the chances that your website will get good rankings in Google search results:

• Remove all spam elements from your web pages

Anything that might be considered as spam will have a negative effect on the position of your web pages sooner or later. This includes text of nearly the same color as the background, cloaking and fully automated linking systems.

• Check your website design and the navigation structure

Your website should have a professional look and feel. The navigation should be intuitive and your web pages should be easily crawl-able by search engine spiders.

• Get links from social bookmark websites

Social bookmark links also play a role in Google’s current algorithm and that role might increase.

• Check your links

You shouldn’t link to websites that look like spammers. It’s better to focus on several quality links instead of numerous low quality links.

Have you ever wondered what exactly “anchor text” is? Anchor text is the words on a page that are “hyperlinked”.

Anchor text should give your readers valuable information about the content of the page you’re linking to.  The reason why anchor text is so important for SEO (search engine optimization) is that search engines find out what the page is about. If you use anchor texts right you can boost your rankings, especially in Google. Don’t use anchor texts like “click here” or “read this” because you are telling the search engines that the subject is “click here” or “read this. Use a keyword phrase that is a relevant topic on the URL destination, and you will score points with the search engines.

If you have your link on other sites it is a good idea to provide the link in html format because you will then determine what’s in the anchor text.  However, you should not make your site look like one big link, so don’t overdo it.

You can use anchor text in: external links (from other sites like article directories), internal links (from one internal page to another) or you may link back to your main domain from all sub-domains/pages.  It’s vice to keep in mind that there are real people that are reading your sites, so the anchor text needs to make sense to the reader.

1. Internal Link Structure: Make sure that your inner pages are linked correctly. Visitors should have easy pathways connecting to your other pages from every page of your website. Make sure the code of your website is verified and keep JavaScript and flash to a minimum, if you can. Essentially make sure the website is clean, easy to use and interlinked to help the user experience.

2. Content: Content is very important. To start make sure that you have text on all your important pages, then make sure it is good text consisting of your targeted keywords spread throughout naturally. Always write your content for humans. Never write content for search engine optimization purposes only.

3. Inbound Links: Don’t buy or exchange links. Market and promote your business online for building visitors to your website over time. If you do, then the relevant links will follow.

4. Bounce Rate: Although bounce rate might not seem vital if Google sees that nobody hangs out on your website for more than a few seconds before they leave this could be a ranking problem over time. Make changes to get visitors engaged with your website. Simple things, like newsletter, video sign up, call to actions, etc will help improve your bounce rate over time.

5. Outbound links: Make sure that the websites you link to are 100% relevant to your business and industry. If you sell animals toys but you are linking to a site that sells shoes then that is not very relevant and over time could really impact your SEO. Bottom line is if it makes sense to link to another site, then do so, but remember you could be sending your visitors away from your site.

The Internet is becoming more densely populated and for a blog to rise to the top of search engine rankings is getting more challenging. Here are some search engine optimization methods that bloggers can use to increase their search engine exposure.

Let’s consider blog posts. Each blog post should be tuned in accordance with accepted SEO practices. The post title should include its target keyword or key phrase in the left most position and your permalink structure should be set up appropriately. Link your posts within context to other posts on your blog. If using images within blog posts, be sure to include concise and accurate HTML alt tags.

Within the main body of your blog post, try to repeat your main target keyword or key phrase several times. Additionally, repeat similar keywords or key phrases or popular search alternatives and synonyms of your target keyword or key phrase. This will increase your search engine exposure.

Where possible and when appropriate, emphasize your main keywords or key phrases using HTML strong tags. Some SEO experts say that this has no overall effect on your search engine rankings, however, some bloggers have noticed improvement when using this technique in particular situations.

Even though increasing organic traffic is important, for a blog to succeed and last long, it is more crucial to write clear compelling content for human readers. After all, it’s the readers who keep the traffic flowing and thus increase the ranking.

Here is the list of the most vital Google ranking factors to consider:

1. Age of Domain: Age of URL is very important for SEO. If you just bought your domain a few weeks or even months ago you have a long road ahead of you. The reality is the age of your website helps build trust. If your website has been online more than 3 years, chances are you have an established business.

2. Domain Hosting: Where is your website hosted? Find out through your hosting company what continent or country your site is hosted in. This can often times play a large role in search rankings. Always use a reputable hosting company. If your company is US based then use a hosting company in the United States. Never use the cheapest hosting.

3. Keywords: Optimize your website using keywords. Remember to optimize your website naturally based on the content of each page of your website.

4. Trust: Do you at least have a mailing address listed on your website? You should if you don’t. Google likes trust factors on websites so anything you can add that could help build trust for your audience will benefit your rankings. Having a phone number on each page of your website is recommended. Make it easy for your visitors to do business with you, it all starts with establishing trust and that starts with contact information on your website.

5. URL Structure: Your URL structures should be very clean. There should not be any random characters at the end of your URL’s. This is part of the onsite SEO (search engine optimization) process as well.