Going Organic: How To Make Your Site Stand Out Without Paying Up
If you use search engines frequently, then you may notice that some of your search
results will turn up in small boxes, or in columns off the main search results list. These results can be labeled as paid advertisements, and they can be overly conspicuous to the point of mouse-pointer inviting. The fee they pay, after all, can land them on a choice spot smaller than most search engine results, but set apart from the rest.
If you are the owner of a website, then you may have been tempted, once or twice, to pay the Google or Yahoo! piper and get your own advertising space. But is the bill worth it? Can a few tens or hundreds of dollars really earn you the fame, profit, and name-recall that you need? Or will you be wasting your money and time by engaging in paid advertisements, when you are better off using other cheaper methods? Are there actually cheaper methods to get your site noticed?
The key to getting noticed online is to turn up in an organic search. This means that your website should rank high in search engine indexes, so that it can be on the first page of search results if anyone types in a keyword or key phrase related to your site, and uses it as a search string.
Psychology can also play a role in the aim for many webmasters to turn up on organic search results. On the webmasters side, this can mean savings, since fame and popularity can still be had even without spending. On the consumers and searchers side, this can mean accessibility: having a site labeled under paid advertising can actually tick off some potential customers, who view any paid advertisement as hard selling. To rank high on organic search results, you will need to employ search engine optimization.
SEO: the way to go?
Search engine optimization, or SEO, is the process of modifying or creating a website in order for it to contain content that will make it rank high on search engine indexes, and thereby on organic search results. Most online businesses employ the SEO strategy of manipulating keyword density: that is, they produce content with just the right amount of keywords consistent with their sites aim, products, and services. Too few keywords, and the search engine robots can ignore the site; too many keywords, and the search engine robots can either penalize the site and lower its ranking, or keep it from being scoured for other keywords at all.
SEO had its beginnings in the early years of web design and the Internet, when search engines were beginning to grow and categorize the few existing websites then. The first webmasters submitted their web addresses to search engines, which in turn would send web spiders to crawl through the page, recognize links to other pages, and return to the mother search engine with information on how the site should be indexed. As more and more websites turned up on the Internet, website owners and developers became more competitive and recognized the need to have their sites ranked in search engines, as well as visible and search engine results.
The first search engines searched for keywords in the Meta tag, which is a section of the web page invisible to the viewer, but visible in the pages text file. This tag would contain tens, even hundreds of keywords which could be used by search engines to index the site. Meta tags, however, were also open to abuse: some website owners and developers placed other keywords in Meta tags, if only to index their websites in as many unrelated but popular categories as possible. As this practice flourished, search engine engineers decided to re-engineer their spiders to scour through site content only, not Meta tags.
Today, web designers rely on their content to make their websites rank high for certain keywords. These keywords should be in the title tag, in links that lead to that page, and in the text or content of the page itself. If you are interested in increasing your search engine rankings, then you need to create informative content that is rich in keywords. You can also ask search engine optimization specialists for help, since they know market and searching trends, and can modify your sites content for you.
Content Really Is King
All that SEO does is to maximize your content. Instead of making you rely on fancy applications, animations, videos, or audio files, you should instead concentrate on your text and content, and how it can serve more people. Search engines, after all, cannot pick up content or index the ideas presented in animations or non-text files. You need to optimize your content so that it meets search engine requirements and searching and indexing styles.
Paid advertising can be effective for those who can afford it, but if you want to save money and still turn up in your favorite search engine results, you need to believe that content is king. If you have valuable, well-written, keyword-rich content, you can get the best advertising deals through your search engine and without paying a dime.
by: Elijah Chai
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