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SEO Beginners: The Truth About Getting "Organic"
Listings On Major Search Engines
In this article, we are going to take a look at
the process of organic search engine
optimization for beginners, how to get permanent
placement on the result pages of major search
providers like Google, and other little-known
SEO basics that everyone should understand and
practice.
First, let's cover the fundamentals. Over 92% of
all internet traffic is driven by major search
engines. These search engines include Google,
Yahoo, and MSN Live Search - just to name a few.
Being listed or not will be the difference
between life and death for your website -
especially if you are offering goods or services
for sale. You could have one of the best looking
websites on the internet, but you wouldn't get
even one customer if potential buyers can't find
you on the search engine they use!
Getting natural listings in the major search
engines is basically a 3
step process ...
Step 1: Keyword
Optimization
To get started, the first step in our crash
course for for the SEO beginners is keyword
optimization. A keyword or keyword phrase is
simply a word or group of words that very
accurately relate to the product, service, or
topic of your website. For example if you sold
wooden toys on your site, a good keyword phrase
might be something like "custom wooden toys" or
"buy wooden toys overnight".
Each page of your website can have different
keyword phrases, depending on the content of
that individual web page. However, the most
important page to optimize is your home page
because it will be the first page the search
engine spiders (or "bots") see when they visit
your site to index it. The relevance of your
keywords to the page content, their placement
throughout the page, and a variety of other
factors will help each search engine's bot
determine where your website will appear on
their search listings.
Most search engine bots these days use
algorithms to automatically inspect your site
and instantly rank it. Odds are, if your site is
not keyword optimized it will place very low -
if at all. In short, without keyword
optimization your site
may be buried many pages deep in the search
results where potential customers still cannot
find you.
The Problems
Optimizing your web page for the search engine
spiders can be a very tricky and time consuming
process, even for the SEO beginner and
experienced webmaster alike. Without a deep
understanding of exactly how EACH search engine
ranks websites (and they are ALL different) and
a lot of free time on your hands it can be
almost impossible to get even mediocre results
without shelling large amounts of cash to have
someone optimize your website for you. If you
have a brand new website then your initial
Google PageRank will be 0. Meaning anyone with a
PageRank of 2 or more will in most cases rank higher then you
in the search engine results. That said, it is
possible for a very well optimized site to rank
higher then a page that is less optimized with a
higher PageRank.
Hundreds if not thousands of different companies on the internet
offer to optimize your website for a
"reasonable" price. That's a good thing right?
In theory yes. However the fact is many (if not most)
companies offering these services are run by
people who are no where near qualified of
competent enough to deliver what they promise. Many use hidden
methods or shortcuts ("black hat") and/or
drastically overprice their services. Believe it
or not, quite a few SEO companies even charge
thousands of dollars for very basic services!
Some even add hidden costs or high per-hour fees
for support. More over, if you actually take the
time to read their "Terms of Service" you will
see that they do not guarantee results and you
have absolutely no recourse or refund no matter
what happens.
How do I know? Good question. Once upon a time I was in the same position that you are now,
trying to generate traffic for my site, and my
company was scammed out of over $3,000 in just
one year by various web marketing companies -
and I still have the receipts to prove it! I was
helping to make them rich while I continuously
struggled just to get by. These crooks are
worried only about their bottom line and care
little about the success of your website.
 Continue to Step 2 |
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