SEO what is it? Why you need it? What you can expect to pay for it.

This was supposed to be a single article but as I worked getting the ideas out it ballooned into a three part article, stay tuned for the next parts over the next several days.

Part 1. What is SEO?

So what is SEO (Search Engine Optimization)? It is something everyone who has a web site they want to be seen needs in some form or fashion. This is usually because they want their site found in the search engines, the most popular of which right now is Google, although it is rumored that the new upstart Bing has sworn to spend whatever it takes to overtake them.

To give a clearer understanding about what SEO is I need to explain what it isn’t. It isn’t simply the placing of some keywords in your Meta tags, or just simply putting a description there also. Now these things are important but there is a process to SEO. You don’t try to target the single word in your industry although you could if you want and I’ll happily take your money for doing it and so will many other companies.

No SEO is a process that many people do not even think about, there are even some website creators out there that do it without even thinking about it or even trying to do it. I myself was one of those for a couple of years several years ago until the search engines changed their search algorithms.

So by now you’re really, really saying get to the point John and tell me what SEO is would you. Ok I will try to let you in on some of the great secrets that are being kept from you about SEO. Are you ready for the biggest secret, well it is Time, HUH??? You ask, Yes Time, and by this I mean no matter what you do it takes time and some consistency.

I recently completed a new web site with a brand new domain ok I actually launched it on June 2, 2009. It took me till June 7th to get it listed in the search engines. Then it took until June 17 to start seeing stats in my Google webmaster accounts. I have watched it bounce around quite nicely for a couple targeted keyword combinations. The web site is www.NuTemple.com and it is a World of WarCraft fan site I launched to help bring customers to my web hosting business since I can host great blog and other fan sites for WoW and other MMRPGs.

I have been targeting the keywords free template Joomla world of WarCraft, I have watched the site hit a high so far of 3 and a low of 27 not too bad since at the time of this writing it is June 21, 2009. And a search in Google returns over 1, 110, 000 entries on these keywords and I showed at 9. I must be doing something right. But now comes the hard part, I need to maintain these stats this will require some work and regular additions to the site to keep it fresh.

Now for the next big secret which really is an open secret, and that is content is king, always has been always will be. This means the content you have needs to be relevant to the keywords you are targeting. So if your targeting free Joomla templates you don’t really want to start placing keywords in there referring to WordPress templates unless you happening to be giving those away also, (which by the way I am when you create a web hosting account with me you gain access to free Joomla and WordPress templates just head on over to www.FireDragonHosting.com and sign up) so you see you really need to make sure of your content.
Ok maybe that was a bad example of what not to do how about if I was to try targeting the keywords for cars or shipping here, I might see a hit or two but that would soon fall off the radar after the search engines realized I had nothing at my site for those keywords.

This is the big thing you need to do that is to write content about what your site is about and regularly add new, interesting and informative articles to the site to keep people coming in to view it. This of course is the reason I write these articles.

You need to remember something else about the way search engines work, that is if you do show high in the listings and someone clicks your link then they bounce back within a few seconds the search engines will see this and start to think well maybe your site should not list so high for those key words and they will start to penalize you for it.

So to break it down for you, you need the following, Time, Good Content, and the content that is about your site in some way or another to keep people on your site once they do click those high ranking links.

Part 1. What is SEO?

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