DIY SEO Tips

Is designed to give you some tips for improving your rankings in search engines that you may be able to do yourself.Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of taking steps to assure that your site is placed higher in search engine results than your competitors' websites. Google, MSN and Yahoo have a hold on the vast majority of daily searches performed on the Internet. In fact, Google's market share of search is so large that most SEO tips are geared toward them.

Two Types of Search Engine Results

There are two basic types of search engine results - organic or natural, and paid. Getting listed on the first page of results is pretty much critical as most people who search the Web won't bother to look any farther than the first page of search engine results to find you.

You can pay for such high placement through Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising campaigns, such as Google AdWords or Yahoo Sponsored Search or Microsoft's adCenter.

If you outbid your competitors your website can get placed on the first page of search results.

Organic search results are where your website ranks on its own - without ad payments. Getting your website placed in the top 10 search results for your targeted keywords can result in increased traffic to your website and consequently, increased sales for your home business. Organic search engine optimization, then focuses on improvements in your organic search rankings.

Organic SEO is Both an Art and a Science

Organic SEO of your website for improved search results is both an art and a science, but it's not rocket science. The science part of SEO lies largely in understanding the algorithms, or formulas, used by the search engines to determine where sites rank and making decisions on which keywords - terms or phrases people use to conduct a search - to target.

The "art" portion of SEO is how you go about implementing techniques for search engines to find you.

Unfortunately, search engine algorithms change constantly and the search engines do what they can to keep their algorithms and techniques secret. While understanding the factors that are used for search rankings is akin to cracking a code, there is a wealth of information available on the web - some of it reliable and some of it not-so-reliable.

Keyword research is the process of understanding what search terms or phrases your targeted site visitors might use to find you, and then selecting the right balance between keyword popularity - the number of times the word or phrase is used in a search - and competitiveness - the number of other websites that are trying to rank highly for those keywords, measured by the results returned by the search engine for the keyword phrase used. Finding frequently used keywords that relatively few sites are targeting is the challenge. It is the foundation for all SEO efforts and cannot be overlooked.

Do-it-Yourself or Hire an SEO Pro?

There's no question that an ethical, or "white hat" search engine optimization firm can work wonders for your website traffic. However, depending on your comfort level with HTML - the computer language used to create most website pages - there are a number of things you can do yourself to optimize your site for search and get more traffic without the expense of hiring someone to do it for you.

Taking your own steps to improve your site's search engine rankings will save you money. While you may not be able to do all the things an SEO professional could do, even with this search engine optimization tutorial, if you have a limited budget you'll want to do what you can to boost your site's traffic. Here are some SEO tips that most of you can probably do yourself.

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