SEO (Search Engine Optimize) What?

This is one of those posts I've been avoiding doing, even though I knew I had to at least make one post on it if I'm really going to be telling people how I've worked so far.

Search engine optimization, as you've heard me mention before, is basically creating the best possible web site for a particular keyword. Keywords are, of course, the basic words and phrases that people type into google or other search engines. You need to have a very optimized site before you can actually start getting traffic and making money from your site (you could aim for social traffic, but that's a whole other ball game).

The reason I've been avoiding this particular topic is because this blog, for now, is NOT a way to teach you how to make tons of money online. Before you start asking how that's possible when basically all my posts have been going over methods of such , I want to point out that it is a site that makes suggestions and provides information on creating an internet income, but, as of now, I can't honestly consider myself a teacher of anything.

So with that in mind, don't start thinking that I'm the end all, be all of SEO, or even that I know a mild percentage of what people like Grizzly know on the subject. No, I'm just a lowly new comer myself.

But enough of the disclaimer- if you're still reading then you must have absolutely no idea what this stuff is all about, aside from what I've (or somebody even less experienced) has told you.

The basic ways you hear about for getting search engine traffic now consist of article marketing (if you want to do it free) or PPC advertising (if you want to do it faster, but pay boatloads of cash). If you choose the blue pill article marketing, then you'll need to optimize your web page. Creating it isn't enough to ensure that you're even ranked by google, which is pretty much the only search engine you need to worry about (MSN and Yahoo are great, but google answers 60% of queries whereas they make up a combined 30%, and things like Askjeeves and Dogpile aren't even mentioned by name, so go with Google).

There are a lot of things that determine if Google will pick up on your site, and exactly where it will appear in the search results if it does. Typing in the keyword "make money online" will bring up a page that will give you several sites. But if you look at the sites, most of them will have "makemoneyonline" or "makemoney" or some other variation of that basic keyword in the web address. In addition, all of the first ten sites have the post/article title with the words "make money online". That's the first, most basic of basic steps you can take to actually get a ranking in Google.

That was also an example of on page optimization. Basically, on page optimization of a site is editing the site and keeping it Google friendly while you work on off page optimization. On page is very easy compared to off page. Off page optimizing a site requires that you leave the site itself and start searching for some backlinks. What are backlinks? Glad you asked, my friend! Backlinks are simply links back to your own site. However, getting a quality backlink isn't easy, as simple as it sounds. See, Google splits up its indexed sites across several different ranks- ones that are most "useful" and found to be the "best" are ranked 10/10. The ones that are ranked, but that don't actually have much influence at all are 0/10. Your site will probably start off not ranked. Getting a ranking requires that you get backlinks from sites that are already ranked. The scaling of it works so that the higher Pagerank a site that you get backlinks from has, and the more relevance to your topic that page has, gives you a higher page rank.

Say I got a dozen backlinks from several sites that each have a Pagerank of 0/10, and my Pagerank is 1/10. Those backlinks may help a little, but not really in the scheme of things, even if their topic is making money online as well. Now let's say I got 1 backlink from a site with a Pagerank of 7/10 that was in my same area of expertise- my niche- of make money online. That would seriously help! But, by the same token, if I got a link from a Pagerank 7/10 site that was about shaving caterpillars to eat as a delicacy, then my site would throw up not get much of an increase in Pagerank.

Getting traffic requires that you have your keywords clearly defined and sprinkled throughout your articles (but don't over do it or Google will punish you), and include your keyword in your headings and url as well, but for all the good on page optimization does, it doesn't really help you get traffic in even a moderately competitive niche. Off page optimizing is harder, but you'll need to do it to really search engine optimize and get traffic.