Search Engine based Marketing

The names of Search engines are familiar to most of us who use internet , internet marketing, web designing and may be even to those who are in serious blogging. Most of us who do the internet marketing find the web sites through search engines. The search engines have then incredible task of searching several billion web pages. A significant percentage of the online sales are also driven by the search engines. Some of the search engines we are familiar with are MSN, Yahoo and Google. Search engine markeitng (SEM) involves desiginig the web site in such a way that searh engines can smoothly crawl over it and look for key words as well as other attributes and rank your web site so that it comes at the higher end of the sites considered releant to the key word used by the enquirer in the search.

What does a search Engine do?

When search engine receives a search query, say for example XYZ subject, it consults the data base and to find the text that is matching and gives the person searching whom we can call as "enquirer" a list of sites that he can refer and get the relevant information. This the search engine will do with the help of "spiders" or "blots" to follow the links on the site and also read the pages in the site through the links. The search engine in the process also performs the task of storing the pages in its data base. The pages are also ranked and indexed by the search engine. When a search is performed by the enquirer the search engine lists the sites based on the three important criteria-the most accessible, relevant and popular sites.

SeaOptimization (rch Engine SEO)

Frequently after web site is developed a web site owner may go to a search optimizer known as SEO agency (Search Engine optimization agency). It is important that the SEO agency is chosen very carefully .One good test to apply is to see where the agency is when you search for search engine optimization agencies.

How does SEO Help?

The main purpose of SEO is to get as much traffic as possible to your web site with the help of search engines that use the key words. This helps in building and managing a web site. When an enquirer types a relevant word which is in your site , it can make it appear at the high end of the lisitings

Therefore search engine is a traffic builder. Therefore a SEO optimization requies that the site should take the factors necessary to make the site optimal for the rating process. The search engines go through the site and rank the sites based on a very large number of attributes and rank them. The rank will depend on how the search takes place without any "speed bumps" and "Walls", that could slow down or put a snag in the search process.

Search Engine Marketing and the need for SEO Optimization

THe process of optimization requires that three key aspects need to be taken care of in the design of the web site- These are the architecture, the site content and the incoming links.

The site architecture requires that it the site is easily accessible. It should have a site map (HTML), should not contain broken links, and should have an architecture that is not too deep requiring too many clicks to access a point. Similarly too many drop down menus or restricted access points that need log ins also make the search difficult for search engines and could get a low rank in Search engines marketing (SEM) because of poor optoimization (SEO).

It will best if the site is acsessible by as many browsers as possible and uses CSS (style sheet) so that there is no need for reading the code by the search engines. THe code that is used must be well written and and effiicient for the serch engines to read; that is validate the code.

The Second requirement is content optimization. This requires some good work. First and foremost is creating a content rich site making it certain that there is no overflow.  Structure must be clear and coherent. Since images are not seen search engines it is best to use alternate attributes. The freshness of the content is equally important whcih requires adding new pages, updating the content and similar activities.

It is best ot compile the list of key words that describe the content, analyse the key words  and select the best, decie the number of key words to use per  page (not too many though), identify the ways to embed the key words in prominent places in the text such as headings and page titles.