Organic Search Engine Optimization ~ The Basics

With all the talk about organic search engine optimization and how important it is to promoting a web site, some web masters are deluded into thinking that they have no hope of competing without the help of a search engine optimization professional. With no money to spend, these web masters just bemoan their helplessness and learn to live with the fact that their web sites will always be at the bottom of search engine results.

While paying an organic search engine optimization professional may indeed give a web site an enormous boost in page ranking, this does not mean that there is no other option left to the web master with no funds to hire one. There are lots of things in web site building and design that are commonly neglected when these details could have made a big difference in search engine rankings.

Begin at the basics: file naming and page title

The web site is a mine of opportunity to improve page ranking. A web master may not neglect to include keywords in the meta-tags and in the web content but has due consideration been given to the other elements of the web site?

One case in point is file naming. When the web site names the web site's home page, for example, it is usually the case that the name chosen is "home.html." Right there is one opportunity wasted. This name could have been turned into "pets-home.html" instead and thus would have included the keyword "pets" which would be more relevant to a web site dedicated to pets. The web designer could then have incorporated a keyword in the file name of each web page that makes up the whole web site, and the site's relevance could have risen with it.

Another organic search engine optimization opportunity that's often wasted is an untitled page. This is usually a mistake that's been committed unwittingly and occurs due to forgetfulness and negligence on the part of the web designer. It is important to give a title to every page in the web site, and the more the page is relevant to keyword queries then the better the page title is.

Enhance and improve: keywords, hyperlinks and images

Even someone with little training in organic search engine optimization knows that the use of relevant keywords throughout the web pages will improve the overall search engine rank of the web site. However, some web masters merely include the keywords without trying to maximize their impact.

Keywords could have been turned into anchor texts that in turn direct the readers to other pages in your web site or to other sections of the same page. Doing so would have increased the effectiveness of your keywords and could have increased the ranking of your other web pages.

The navigation bar is also another means to improving page rank when it incorporates text links at the bottom that contain your keywords. Even navigation bars with images instead of texts should incorporate keyword text links underneath.

The images on the navigation bar and the graphics for web design purposes themselves could also incorporate alternative text descriptions that are composed of relevant keywords and can be seen by search engines.

Be accurate: relevant keywords

If keywords are important to search engine optimization efforts, then it is even more important to make sure that the keywords that are being emphasized all over the web site are truly and actually relevant. There is a need to know what keywords most web-surfers use in relation to the web site's business or service field. Being off the mark on this is a certain way to get bottom rank in organic search engine optimization results.