Once again we enter a discussion about the clouded art of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Its been discussed, debated, and re evaluated over and over again. Its been written about and rewritten about by every self proclaimed expert in the web sphere, sometimes with helpful hints, other times with obvious tips, most of the times with contradictions. It is crowned to be the most important task an online business can partake in, the quest to be recognized as the most relevant space by the search engine results pages (SERPs) to enter, for this widget or that widget.

According to Forrester research;

• 93% of all internet traffic is generated from internet search engines
• 89% of them are first-time visitors
• 99% of internet searchers do not search beyond the top 30 results
• 97% of them never look beyond the top three results
• Top 10 positions receive 78% more traffic than those in positions 11-30
• 65% of online revenue is generated from websites in the top three positions on search engine results pages
• 93% of global consumers use search engines to find websites
• 76.7% of Google users use the natural search links (organic, unpaid listings)

And in terms of organic, or natural search results, it all comes down to the interpretation of a robot (or web crawler) , that cant see nor hear or be dazzled by blinking lights or sliding navigation bars. Its just the text, the whole text, and nothing but the text.

With just that last sentence, I would propose that the industry might reconsider the designation of search engine optimization be changed to search engine friendly. Be friendly to our neighborhood robots, and they might be friendly to you.

The design of your website must be entered into with two important considerations in mind. What your customer see, what the search engines see, and the realization that these may be two entirely different things. Customer usability is critical, as is search engine readability.

Customer usability can be broken down into 5 components:

1. Learn-ability: How easy is it for users to accomplish basic tasks the first time they encounter your website?
2. Efficiency: Once users have scanned your website, how quickly can they perform the desired tasks?
3. Memorability: When users return to your website after a period of not using it, how easily can they reestablish proficiency?
4. Errors: How many errors do users make, how severe are these errors, and how easily can they recover from the errors?
5. Satisfaction: How pleasant is it to use your website, how much of the needed information are they finding there?

The path between search engine friendly (optimization) and customer usability can be a narrow one. Many best practice requirements can seem to conflict, but with continued attention and tweaking it can be achieved. The basics of search engine optimization in applied web marketing are really quite simple. They mostly pertain to keyword content of your text copy, and can be summarized in five points.

1. Register a good domain name which correctly reflects your business and what the site is all about. If you are selling the best roofing sealant on the market dont register the domain name as www.johnsmith.com. The better choice would be to get as close to www.BestRoofingSealant.com as you can because of the obvious relevance.
2. Design your URL structure so that your individual pages contain the relevant keywords which, again, describe the content of the page. custom?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&oe=ISO-8859-1&client=pub.asp or page2.html do your pages an incredible injustice. There is zero recognition or relevance involved in these page names. The better and optimal choice is to name the page which describes the components of your roofing sealant why-this-is-the-best-roofing-sealant.html.
3. Again we make a call to the text, this time the title text. The text in the title Meta tag is crucial in letting search engines know what each page is about. Put your important keywords in your title tags and make these tags different and specific for each page. If you are compelled to include your company name in the title tags, include them last.
4. The other Meta tags in your html code are not as important as the title tag, but the description tag is still used by some search engines in displaying what you would like web users to see when they scroll down a page of search results. Treat the description tag seriously. Make it brief (about 25 to 30 words) and as comprehensive as possible in the short space allowed. Make sure you have your popular keywords included within your description tag.
5. Pay attention to keyword density within the content copy of your pages. Each search engine has its own preference as to how many times a keyword phrase appears on the page in order to signify the relevance of that keyword or keyword phrase. Around 5 to 8 per cent is a good guide to use as to the optimal level. Dont overdo it, otherwise it will be seen as spam or keyword-stuffing. Also use your keywords in your page headings and wrap those heading in H1 and H2 tags.

As you can see, each of the above requirements refers to text. Here is one more issue to remember;

• Design your site navigation as text, not images. Search engines can not read your images. If you HAVE to use images for navigation in your design, include alt tags with these images which clearly describe what this image is about. Include a footer navigation bar which is in text format.

Besides the issue of text, youve heard the work Keyword an awful lot in this reading. Because it is a fair assumption that you have heard this word many times before, and understand its importance, Ill be brief in adding a small explanation.

Keywords are words or phrases provided to search engines to give them base knowledge as to where to look for the relevant information. Search engines examine page content to determine whether that page is relevant for a particular search word, keyword or keyword phrase. Thus, effective keyword selection is one of the cornerstones of being search engine friendly. The next step is using them in the body, title, headings, and meta-tags on your page.

The second most critical aspect of search engine ranking, which of course is our goal in doing all this search engine optimization, making our pages search engine friendly, and for all intent and purpose, putting our business on the web in the first place (The average search engine user views 93 search pages a month, taking an average of 27 minutes. At most, people will go through three pages of results before giving up, found a survey by Jupiter Research. Search engine ranking is what puts you within these top three pages), is a good linking strategy. Link building is the process of creating inbound links to ones own website. This can be done with reciprocal links, being listed in e-zines, newsletters, directories, etc. One way Quality links are the bread and butter of your Google search engine ranking. Unfortunately, link strategy (or link building) is not a subject that belongs in an article about search engine optimization, so we will have to table this subject for a future article. I just wanted to touch on this important fact to include in your strategy for gaining visibility in the search engine world. A search for what is link building? will result in many good articles for you to research.

Lets end this edition by going over some what not to dos;

1. Dont spend most of your time on the look and less of your time on the content. As you might have deduced, the content and usability of your website is more important than its design, and this is a fact that is not likely to change. Your website is being ranked based on the relevance of the content. A good copywriter, or the time you take to become proficient in this art, is a great investment
2. Dont put keywords into an after thought. Keyword selection is a critical factor in obtaining good natural search engine results. Take the time to do some keyword research.
3. Dont optimize on keywords that are not being searched on. Its not impressive to show up #1 in the natural search engine results for demonical obtrusiveness when there are very few pages in this category in the first place. Your company may pride itself on its great service, but its pointless to optimize great service or anything along those lines, as no-one will be searching for it. Use the free keyword research tools at Yahoo and Google, or purchase a good piece of keyword software like WordTracker.
4. Dont optimize on keywords that are being over searched. As a small to medium sized business, you are probably not going to show up within the first 5 pages for digital camera (05-23-07, 158,000,000 results on Google) so stop trying. Find out what people are searching for and see what youre up against by going to a couple of search engines and entering those terms. If your competitors are all optimizing for a specific term, its probably best to avoid it if you can find an alternative that will still bring the traffic.
5. Dont use your keywords in your content in a clumsy manner. Beware of your copy becoming awkward or in repeating your keywords too often: If youre looking for the best roofing sealant, this is the best place for roofing sealant. Our roofing sealant is better than any other roofing sealant youve heard of
   Copy like this are detrimental to your customers and to the search engine robots. Your customer may rethink their decision to do business with you and as robots get smarter and smarter with each visit, this keyword crowding will cause negative results
6. Dont think you are done! This may be most important point I can put across in this article. A well optimized site may well get you near the top of the search engine results pages, but you should be prepared to continue your research and make the necessary updates if you want to remain in those positions. Every single day another 9 million objects are added to the network that is the internet. One method of keeping your rankings high and your website visible is by adding relevant original content, such as articles and newsletter. Search engines love content, detailed product descriptions, articles relevant to your product line, whatever, - the more content the better. So keep writing, its not as hard as it looks!

As a last aside, be warned, search engines operate in their own time and results can take months to show. This is obviously an important area for you, and it should be, so consider enlisting a professional which can save you a lot of time. However, there is a lot of helpful resources so if you want to do the work yourself, roll up your sleeves, work hard and dont get discouraged.