Whether you're interested in ranking higher on major search engines such as Yahoo, MSN, or Google, one of the key elements is to optimize your website. Search engine optimization, or SEO as it's often referred, is the act of making a web-site more friendly to search engines such that search engine algorithmic search results place the website higher in their results.
There are many ways in which to optimize a web-site for search engines. In fact, many books have been written on this topic and this short article cannot cover all the methods which may be employed. This article will focus on core area of SEO, building quality links to your site.
All major search engines look at the links which are pointing to a website. The quality of the link depends on the source. For instance, a link from Yahoo or Wikipedia.org would normally be of higher quality than that from some unknown site as these two sites are generally held to be authority sites. One way in which to measure which sites Google views as 'high quality' sites is to check their Google Page Rank. A free Google Page Rank checker tool is available if needed at PageRank.net, or simply install a Google toolbar on your browser and you'll be able to view the Page Rank of any website which you visit.
In addition to having quality links pointing to your site you'll also want to make sure that the anchor text is appropriate. The anchor text are the hot-linked words that point to your site. Typically you'll want to try and put relevant keywords in the anchor text. Be sure to vary the anchor text links pointing to your site. Don't always use the exact same anchor text as reports suggest Google may penalize a site for having identical anchor text links.
The next step is to identify which 'authority' sites will provide a link to your site. Obviously free links are superior to paid links it will not cost you anything. One of the smartest ways to build natural links to your site is to submit your site do directories. Below I have compiled a list of some of the top directories along with their PRs:
1) vlib.org has PageRank 9/10.
2) lii.org has PageRank 8/10.
3) dmoz.org has PageRank 8/10.
4) worldhot.com PageRank 6/10.
There are many more sites and ideas which you can implement to help optimize your site for search engines. The directory listing above is a good place to start in building natural links to your site. When you're ready for more Search Engine tips or would like to learn how to make money from your traffic then please read webmaster seo tips.
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