Search Engine optimization is a series of processes by which a website is analysed to understand how it is ranked in the world by Search engines. There are many aspects which have to be looked at including Keyword Analysis, Link Poularity, HTML Validation, Copy relevance, Site Navigation to name but a few aspects. Once this has been done recommendations of changes to the website and its content can be made to try and elevate the website's ranking or position with the relevant search engines for your targeted market.
On the web the only competition you really need to consider are those websites which are ranking in the top 30 positions for your particular keywords or phrases.
Why? Because they have already done their market reasearch and have had their websites optimised, so that they have gained the ranked position they hold at that moment in time and the accepted fact is that higher your ranking to greater amount of traffic you are likely to attract. The Search Engine Ranking is very fluid and can change on a daily basis as new pages and websites are being submitted constantly. So this is not a one time process, your website has been Optimised reached No 1 for a particular keyword, but it does not end there for the web is a mirror image of business and your competitors will be trying to displace you from that coverted postion. The level of competition will be down purely as to the field of business you are in and the value of your market sector.
What do you expect to get from you website? Is it on-line sales you are looking for? Sales Leads? Product, Service or Brand awareness? Increased numbers of customers visiting your business premises? Or any combination of this? All of these questions and many more help to create the Marketing Strategy you will adopt for your business.
The copy on your pages needs to be informative and about either your company, the products/services you are offering or related to your field of expertise. It also has to be original for copied text unless it has the corresponding link and source acknowledgement it will affect your ranking and can mean that the page is not indexed by the search engine. Also is the copy on the pages regularly updated, for while original text is important, the search engines like to see pages being added or content changed as this encourages return visitors or "bookmarking" to the website as well as increases the websites "Stickiness" factor.
Keywords are how your website is found through the search engines, so the selection of keywords and their placement is vital to your marketing. Who are you targeting as potential customers? How are your potential customers finding the services or products you offer on the web? Do you have direct competition on the web and if so who are they? It may look great having the top position for 5 keywords/phrases, but if they are not generating any visitor traffic then you have the wrong keywords/phrases and need to re-look at your target market.
While you may have the top product or service which people want, how do they get to it? The further away from your home page in terms of how many "Clicks" the customer has to make the more likely the customer will be put off and go elsewhere. But the ease of navigation also affects how the spiders rank your website for if they cannot find pages then they cannot index them.
The World Wide Web is ethos is that websites are there to network information. So having links both inbound and outbound is extremely important for if you do not have these they you are not truely part of the web and your ranking will be affected. But when looking at links there are certain factors which do need consideration for your website to gain the maximum benefit for it Search Engine Page Ranking:-