SEO
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About
What is SEO? Wikipedia defines it as 'Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the visibility of a web site or a web page in search engines via the "natural" or un-paid ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results.' [1] In simpler terms it means to modify or design your site in a way that is more friendly to search engines. Good SEO is not about tricks or tactics to manipulate the search engines into returning better results for your site, but rather presenting your content in a consistent and optimized format.
One important thing to note is that search engines use powerful algorithms to search, classify, and index content. These algorithms are unique to each search provider and are invaluable to them, therefore the actual inner workings of all the major search engines is a closely guarded secret. Be aware of this if someone or some site is claiming to be an expert in a particular search engine or has definitive answers in how specific search functions work. This means that most of what has been learned about how a search engine functions has been through trial and error, testing, and a little black magic.
How Search Engines Work
SEO Basics
There are three main components to increasing search engine traffic to your site:
Technical
Is your site written with valid HTML and CSS? Are there proper <title> and header tags? Do you have a valid sitemap? Are portions of your site invisible unless using Flash or JavaScript?
Some common suggestions that may help your site be indexed correctly by a search engine.
- Validation -- Does your site validate? Are all of your tags closed? Are you using bad tags? While having a validated site will not increase your search rankings it will help to ensure that your site can be read by more search engines. You can use the W3C Validation Service to check your site's HTML. You can also check for dead links and validate your CSS
- Title Tags -- Does your page have accurate and unique title tags? To read about what makes up a good title tag see title tag facts on seologic.com.
- Header Tags -- Header tags are a way to show prominence to content, like titles to an article or section, category names, etc. Proper header tags help each page get indexed more accurately based on the keywords you provide. For more on header tags see SEO Header Tags
- Product/Category "Friendly URLs" -- Do your product pages still look like http://www.mysite.com/category/1983/67? If so you should read this article and give your products/categories proper url-names. You can set URL names for categories by going to Inventory >> Edit Categories >> (Select category to edit) >> Options >> URL Name. For products go to Inventory >> (All Products or Product Search) >> Product Display >> Product Display >> URL Name:. URLs cannot contain spaces and can only contain letters, numbers, underscores '_', and dashes '-'.
- Meta Tags -- Meta Tags are a way to categorize content on your site. The importance of meta tags has declined over the years as they were used to manipulate the search engines, as a consequence most search providers have dropped or seriously decreased the importance in a sites ranking.[2] For help in setting up Meta Tags on your eCMS site see Meta Tags.
- Image Alt Tags -- Img alt tags were designed as a text placeholder while an image downloads or if an image was missing. Alt tags also provide a way for search engines to classify images and the surrounding content. Google has a great article on images in their Webmaster Guidelines.
- Broken Links -- Make sure that there are no broken links out there pointing to your site. This can happen if you change the name of a category, page, or product and do not setup a redirect (Settings >> URI Redirects). If you have a Google Webmaster Account then you can look at your site errors to determine if you have any broken links. You can also use the W3 Link Checker to check your site.
- Site Load Speed -- If a site is perceived to load slow to a user they are more likely to abandon your site for a faster competitor. If that's not bad enough, Google will also penalize you if your site runs too slow [3]
Content
Content is still king. The first thing you should always remember when discussing how well your site ranks is content. If your site has little or no quality content it is unlikely that users will return link to your site much less link to it. Does your site have good content? Do your products contain descriptive information that would help a user find your products using a search engine? Are you using quality keywords that would attract a user to click on your site if it was returned by a search engine?
Marketing
Are you linking to quality sites and are they linking to you in turn? Have you promoted your site to blogs or other sites in your industry? Are you using ads to target your audience?
Additional Resources
- SEOmoz.org - Long considered one of the best sites on the site to learn about SEO. There are must read guides for the beginner and great lists of free tools.
- Search Engine Land - One of, if not the most popular sites for news and information about the search industry. Great set of beginners guides
- Pingdom.com - Tools to test the health of your site and connection. The Full Page Test tool is a phenomenal resource for testing load times.
- WooRank.com - An in depth site analysis report. Easy and free.
