Basics Of Search Engine Optimization

<p>Before you get into following my steps in search engine optimization and my quest to become the best of the best within the Philadelphia search engine optimization landscape you must understand why I do what I do with SEO and the basics of search engine optimization. I'm sure that I will implement many techniques that will open up questions and discussions. Remember, in SEO there is no formula but instead many theories. What works for some SEO experts may be different for other SEO experts. There are many paths that may lead to the same reward in SEO and sometime it's how we do what we do in those paths that make the difference in good or bad search engine optimization. One of the great things about SEO and search engines is that we are always experimenting and learning. One thing that is for sure is that all SEO experts can find common areas of ethical SEO practices and non ethical SEO practices. There are some practices that every site must have that we all agre e on. There are also some areas to stay away from that no all SEO experts agree on. If I help you understand the basics of good SEO and the things that matter in SEO then I will also share with you the bad things not to do in SEO and the areas I think you should stay away from. </p>

<h2>Website Structure - Flash or No Flash?</h2>
<p>Did you create your own website or was it built for you? Let's say that someone built the website for you and you just received it and your ready to start promoting it. The first question I have to you, "Is it a flash based website" ? If the answer is yes, you may quickly want to think about redesigning your site. Flash is not search engine friendly. I won't go into much detail as this topic can be found in many of the most basic SEO books but I can tell you that as pretty as your new website is, you may be the only one that will end up visiting your website. Site structure is critical to search engine opti mization and friendly website design is a search engines best friend. If the search spiders and crawlers come to your website and only see "flash", they will leave faster then the figured out how they got there. A search engine reads content and loves content. Think of content as food and Google as a whale. The more content you feed Google, the more it understands what your about and wants to visit you. Flash doesn't offer content that is readable by search engine crawlers or spiders. Even if your site only has a bit of flash, flash is heavy and it ways down websites. As pretty as flash may be and as happy as you are to show off that great looking website you may as well rethink the priorities you have with your new website. There are few exceptions to using flash, if your website is already popular or your a global brand that is popular without the needed hard work of daily search engine optimization then you can get away with a little bit of flash. A brand like Nike, a glo bal success can get away with a fully flash site and still be ranked number 1 in search engines. So let's just kill this topic with the fact that flash integrated into web design is a big NO when your trying to build traffic towards your website, especially as a beginner. You will have a much easier time optimizing your website without flash or heavy graphics for that matter.</p>
<p>Heavy graphics is another area that you should try to avoid. If your site is product oriented and all you have is a bunch of pictures of products with buy buttons you need to figure out a way to get some real content on your site. Maybe product reviews, good descriptions, testimonial and so on can often do the trick. Think of a way to offer a balance of graphics and content together but weight heavier on the content side as this will give you benefit towards the crawlers and spiders that index your website.</p>

<h3>Was Search Engine Optimization on the Minds of the Developers when they Designed your Website?</h3>
<p>I've seen multimillion dollar websites developed for large corporations and after all was said and done there was not a single trace of optimization in mind within the site structure. I'm talking about the basics of SEO, meta tags, headers, robot tags, file size, URL names (Permalinks), link structure and so on. Even if you where just given a website with the basics done for you, are all your meta tags and description tags duplicates throughout the site? There are things that you should not do in SEO known in the industry and one thing is for sure, your developer is usually not adapt to know all the fundamentals of search engine optimization. Even if they are aware of the basic steps of SEO, will they implement them for you ? I'm not going to go down the list but there is a great article about the <a rel="nofollow" onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackPageview', '/outgoing/article_exit_link/2192233']);" href="http://websearch.about.com/od/keywordsandphrases/a/search_engine.htm">basics of search engine optimization</a> here that can help get you started with many of the areas that should be covered when starting with your search engine project.
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<h4>Top Mistakes in Search Engine Optimization</h4>
<p>I will later discus s the tricks many SEO experts use to fool search engines and the black hat tactics that can get you in trouble with SEO. One of the areas that you should read related to SEO mistakes can be found here by reading a great article from About.com labeled "<a rel="nofollow" onclick="javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackPageview', '/outgoing/article_exit_link/2192233']);" href="http://websearch.about.com/od/keywordsandphrases/tp/topfivemistakes.htm">Top 5 Mistakes in Website Optimization</a>". For long term success in SEO and success of your website I do not advocate or believe in SEO shortcuts. If you want a website that gets traffic and steadily increases with traffic you must put in the hard work that is associated to proper search engine optimization. Good content, constant fresh content, good site structure, unique title tags and good description tags, social media, social bookmarking, PR blasts, link exchanges, content exchanges and the list can go on. As I go through an d add more content to this website I will talk more about each of these topics in greater detail. We will explore what works and what doesn't work in SEO.</p>