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Search engine optimization (SEO) is essentially developing your website based on the algorithms of the search engines. The popular search engines generally look for the same elements; however one search engine may place more emphasis on a certain element than another. What gains you a #1 rank on MSN may not equate to the #1 rank on Google. However, a well optimized site will do better across the board, resulting in more traffic, which is the goal of SEO in the first place.

One important thing to consider when performing SEO is the structure of your website. Keeping the page code to a minimum will allow you to obtain the perfect keyword density more easily. CSS is a great way to lower the amount of code on a page, as you can keep all of your formatting information contained within a separate file. Clean code is definitely a good practice, but search engines don't seem to penalize websites too severely for incorrect code. You will often find #1 ranked websites in a fairly competitive market with many code errors in their pages. File structure is also important. Make sure you name HTML files accordingly and try to incorporate your keywords into the filename itself. Another element which is often overlooked is making use of "alt" tags. Many web development programs will automatically add "alt" tags to your images when you add them, don't forget to fill the appropriate alt text! Search engines can't understand what your image is conveying, so you have to give it some help with the "alt" tags. Finally, META data is still important. It used to be the predominant element of SEO when search engine algorithms were less complex. Even though the importance of META data has decreased over the years, it is still very important to give careful consideration to your titles, descriptions and keywords.

These are all things you can consider when developing a website, but there are other behind the scenes elements that will help your website rank better. One extremely important factor is inbound links. Obtaining relevant, reputable inbound links can make or break your SEO efforts, especially with Google. Quantity used to be the name of the game, but inbound links from the wrong websites can actually hurt your ranking. Make sure your links come from noteworthy sources and relevant websites.

Sometimes a new website will have a hard time getting off the ground. If you don't have inbound links it may take some time to be indexed by the search engines, and if you are indexed the search engine might not revisit your website as often as you would like. XML sitemaps are a good way to suggest to the search engines when and how often to index your site, but don't be surprised if Google doesn't actually revisit your website hourly just because you ask it to in your XML sitemap.

Whether you plan on performing SEO yourself or hiring a company, keep in mind that SEO is an ongoing effort. Search engines are constantly revising their algorithms in an attempt to bring the best results to the user. Making sure your website meets all the criteria will not be accomplished overnight, and may take some experimentation to perfect.

Learn more about this author, Brad Parsons.
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