Today let's talk a little about SEO or search engine optimization.  Have you come across this phrase yet?  Well, if you're into online marketing, you should've at least encountered it once.  What is it for, you ask?  It’s to optimize your website to show up on the first page of a search engine’s results without having to pay for it.
The truth is, everybody's competing to be included in the first page of search results.  This almost ensures better traffic to their pages, which might translate to better sales and exposure.

For example, if you were to type a certain phrase on Google, the first page results would usually be the ones you'd click on, right?  Truth of the matter is, it's very rare that anybody would search past page 1, unless Google returns pages that aren't the ones you were looking for, which could be a case of you not typing in the right search phrase, most probably.

For the most part though, nobody goes past the first page of search results, so that's where you want to be, if you were vying for targeted traffic based on whatever keyword you're aiming for.  Let's talk about what a keyword is.

Keyword - this is the word or phrase that defines your market.  Say that you have a website about dog shampoos.  Then your keyword would be "dog shampoo" or "shampoo for dogs".  What you want then is that when people type that keyword on Google (or any other search engine), your website would appear on first page, preferably the top 5 sites listed.  Admittedly, you can PAY Google to advertise your site on the first page (called PPC or pay per click), but if you're not cautious, that can quickly drain your budget, especially if people don't patronize your product(s).  Simply, you would want to be on the first page of Google, listed free, as compared to paying for it.  This would be really easy if you didn't have competition, right?  But what are the odds of that?  So, what you need to do is to choose keywords that are not too competitive, AND optimize your site for the search engines.

First things first:  Keyword research

Okay, so you need to do keyword research.  That means a couple of things:

1. Snoop on your competition.  When you search Google for your targeted keyword(s), look at the first 5-10 sites that come up in the organic listing.  Look at their products, etc.  But the real reason for this is, we want to check their backlinks.  So list down the websites' URL (www.competitor.com) then back on Google, type (without the quotes) "link:www.competitor.com".  This will then show you results of other webpages that have linked back to your competitors' websites.  By now, you should be familiar with backlinks.  In other words, this result will tell you your competitor's backlinks.  When you have a list of those sites, you can then work on getting those as your site's backlinks as well.

2. Get a piece of paper (or use Notepad), write down synonyms, phrases that have to do with your targeted keywords.  Think like your target market, and anticipate what they would search for that has something to do with your keywords.  Decide on one main keyword, then two or three supplementary keywords.

3. Start the actual research.  Search for Google Adwords and sign up.  This is actually Google's PPC business, but don't worry, you're not going to pay for an ad campaign; you're just going to use their excellent keyword research tool.  Once you're finished with the sign-up process, click on "Keyword and Tools" then "Keyword Tool."  Put in your keywords and you will then get important information that may help you choose what keywords to actually use.  Pay particular attention to "Competition", "Global Monthly Searches" and "Local Monthly Searches."  Choose keywords that have less competition but are still relevant to your niche.  There are a lot of helpful videos on YouTube that you can refer to to help you understand this data.

Once you've decided on your keywords, it's time to start the real work.

There are 2 processes involved in SEO: onsite and offsite.  Onsite refers to the actions that you need to take to make your site visible to the search engines.  Offsite refers to how you're going to advertise the popularity of your page to the search engines.  The former talks about optimizing your page’s design, layout, and content according to your keywords to help search engines identify your site with a certain keyword(s), the latter talks about how you're going to make your site rank higher for the given keyword(s).

Onsite Optimization
This is not as easy as you think, because it requires that you have some knowledge of HTML.  If you have a webmaster, then this should be a walk in the park.  What are some things that you need to be aware of when doing onsite optimization?
• Have a sitemap – this helps search engines index your pages better.  Get the xml, html, and robots.txt files then place those in your root directory.
• Domain name choice – this is a bit controversial.  Some people say that keywords in your domain name is relevant, some say otherwise.  In any case, I’d admit it would be easier for people to find your site if your keyword is there.  Ex. www.best-doggy-shampoos.com
• Domain extension – as much as you can, stick with the .com extension.  This is the most common, and the easiest to remember.  This is also the default extension that people know.
• Title tag – your main keyword has to be in here.
• H1 tag – try to use just one H1 tag per page, and put your main keyword in there too.
• H2 tags – you can use this for your supplemental keywords.
• Content – this is where keyword density comes in.  Typically, you’d want a 1% to a maximum of 5% density.  This means that for every 100 words, 5 words are your main keywords.  You can sprinkle your content with your secondary keywords too.  Just don’t overdo it.
• Anchor text – this refers to links.  As much as possible, use your keywords or your URL as anchor texts.  Don’t just say “Click Here” or “Go Here”.

Offsite Optimization
This is actually more difficult than onsite optimization, because this entails that you advertise your site.  Some of the things you can do are:
• Back links – this is where you get authority sites to link back to your site.  This is harder than you think, because if you’re new on the block, it’s pretty hard to get their attention.  How can you do this?  Some examples are:
o Article writing submission – must be focused on your niche.  Submit to article directories such as this one
o Reviews of products or services in your niche that other sites may find interesting enough to link to
o Reviews of your own products or services that other sites may consider important
o Interview authority figures in your target niche that other sites may consider linking to
o News flash – announce your site, products and services
o Forums – join forums related to your niche and make valuable contributions
o Blogs – start blogs about your products and services
o Relevant content on your own page
o Link wheels – make use of social bookmarking and web 2.0 sites (some sites offer to do this for you for a fee)
o Purchase one-way links – be careful of this, because you might get punished by search engines
o Reciprocal linking – search for sites in the same niche and arrange for two-way linking.  Not as powerful as one-way links, but better than none at all
o Subscribe to link farms – again, be careful of this
• Get your page indexed by the major search engines
• Have your content syndicated through RSS
• Advertise – If you have the budget for advertising, you might consider allocating some money for exposure.  Some examples are:
o PPC – as mentioned previously, pay-per-click could be beneficial, but make sure you compute for returns on investment and at what point you should call it quits
o Traffic exchanges or banner exchanges – mostly free, but limits your exposure to an audience that might not be interested in your niche
o Offline marketing – put your site address on calling cards, flyers, newspaper/magazine ads
o Put up a FaceBook fan page – free advertising
o Sign up for Twitter
o Set-up Google Places to list your business for local searches
• Pay for SEO services – truthfully, managing all this on your own could be daunting.  Writing content and articles, building links, signing up for web 2.0 and social bookmarking sites can be very time-consuming activities.  If you have the patience and the time, you can do this on your own or with some help from partners and friends.  Otherwise, you might see better results from getting professional services.

I’ve just given you a general idea of what you should do to help your rankings in the search engines.  While this is not an exhaustive list, you should now have a better idea of the activities inherent in getting your site ranked better in search engines.  If you like my article, please link back to my blog: Jump now, Fly later.  See, that’s an example of a good anchor text!