Are You Just Starting Out in SEO?

If you are traveling to Louisiana, chances are you are going to do a web search to find out where to stay, what to see, what to do. You will go to a search engine like Google or Yahoo, and probably type in 'accommodation in Louisiana'. This is what is known as a 'search term'. If you do that, within as little as 0.19 seconds, you will be presented with a list of about 182 000 results. The results that come up first are the only results that most people are going to pay attention to. No one has time to wade through that many results, so the first few listings on the first page are going to get the vast majority of traffic. What puts these sites ahead of the other 182 000 results, you may ask? The answer is simple - they got Search Engine Optimization, SEO in Louisiana right.

There are billions of sites on the web, all vying for their share of attention. Search Engines - Google, Yahoo and Bing are the largest - compete to provide users with links that are most relevant, and important to their query. So how do they decide which links are the most relevant to YOUR search? Simply put, search engines rank sites by popularity. Complex mathematical equations, called algorithms based on 'ranking factors' determine how far up or down in the listing of result a particular site will be. A complex computer program determines this, not a human being - so if you don't pay attention to what the search engine 'spiders' which trawl the web gathering information on site are looking for, the search engines aren't going to pay attention to you. And no matter how relevant your site is to a query on "accommodation in Louisiana", no matter how well designed it is, and no matter how great your product is, no-one is ever going to see it. SEO is all about ensuring this doesn't happen, and that your site is consistently returned high in the rankings.

Search engine optimization, SEO in Louisiana sounds complicated, but if you take a look at the Webmaster SEO guidelines for the biggest search engines, a lot of it boils down to good website design, and common sense. People put a lot of emphasis on 'keywords', Meta tags' and external links - all these factors are relevant, but by themselves they will not guarantee good ranking. On the web, as in life, there is always a good and a bad way to go about doing things. In Search Engine Optimization, the 'bad way' is known as Black Hat SEO. Here's an example. You have a site for a business in Louisiana, and you know Britney Spears was raised there. You also know that if you type 'Britney Spears' into a search engine, you are going to get a massive amount of results returned. So even though your site, and your business has nothing to do with Britney Spears, you stuff your site with this name (it's called 'keyword padding') in the hope that this keyword will drive more traffic to your site.

This practice may seem quite logical, but it's no way to go about SEO. Search engines are wise to this practice - they have built in safeguards to protect against it. You don't have to take cheap shots to have a successful website. The basic key to good SEO is excellent content on a website with a number of high quality pages. Write for people - not for spiders (bots). Use keywords phrases that are relevant and appropriate to the content of your site, and update frequently. Search engines pay attention to regularly updated pages. Link content from one page on your site to other pages on your site. Outside links are important, but again, relevance is key to obtaining optimum benefits from this technique. Even if you get some people to your site with cheap shots, they aren't going to stay, you aren't going to have credibility, and your website is never going to be a success.

These are the basics - if you have the budget, there are companies which specialize in SEO in Louisiana - they will guide you through the basics, and work on Brand Building and Viral Marketing, which can yield great results as well. They understand what search engines are looking for, and can offer a great deal of advice on how to make sure your site makes the best use of Search Engine Optimization. Because if you are offering accommodation in Louisiana, you want your link to be the first result returned!