What is search engine optimization?

Wikipedia describes it as

the process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via “natural” (“organic” or “algorithmic”) search results.

I’d like to demistify the “seo” term a bit, so I came up with a list of links to help you understand what search engine optimization really is and what you or your webdesigner can do about it.

Rumour has it, that you’ll have to register your site with the search engines, which is not true. At least if we are not talking about submitting your sitemap.xml.

So, here’s the list:

1. seomoz (search engine optimization blog)
2. seo cheat sheet (small pdf with short seo tips)
3. seobrowser (see your site like a search engine would do)
4. collected seo tipps (from gabriel weinberg)
5. how google really wants you to optimize your site (interview with a google evangelist)
6. use google analytics, here’s the missing manual (missing manual for google analytics)
7. use 404 pages for alternative content (google widget for 404 sites)
8. search engine optimization starter guide (from google)
9. tipps on content from a google engineer (interview with Matt Cutts)
10. see how others do it (collection of over 13 tools for website analysis on noupe.com)

What else can I do?

Some webdesigners start doing it the wrong way. They build their HTML, do some CSS styling and then put search engine optimization at the end.

Do it the other way round, build your HTML based on a good structure with hierarchical headlines, incorporate some of the search engine tips mentioned in the articles and create a valid document.

What can I do, if my site already exists?

Use common sense: Turn of the stylesheets of your site with webdeveloper toolbar or use seobrowser and see if it looks like a hierarchically formatted document to you.

If not, change.

All else that matters is very good  and unique content, content, content with the right keywords.

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