While there is far more to search engine optimization (SEO) than the information included here, if you follow these simple steps, you will be off to a good start with your SEO Campaign.
However, if you are serious about wanting to make money on the internet, the money you spend on a SEO Specialist will pay for itself many times over. A true SEO professional can increase your profits by 250% to 1000%, or more! So seriously consider hiring a professional to optimize your website for you.
Needless to say, if you decide to try it on your own, the first thing you want to do is decide on what market you are targeting. Try to think like a customer. While you may sell the best “blue widget” in the galaxy, if your customer is looking for a “widget to match the sky”, he will not necessarily look for a “blue widget” on the search engines. Even if it seems basic to you! They may search for a "sky colored widget".
Then you want to target those terms, or “keywords” with your website. Would you rather get 1,000 customers looking for a “widget”, or 100 customers looking for YOUR widget?
Make sure your Meta tags are working for you. Meta tags tell a search engine or directory what you have on your site. Of the many Meta tags available, there are three that every website page should have. They consist of the Title, Description, and Keyword tags.
This is what the tags look like:
<title>Blue Widgets by Widget Maker</title>
<meta name="description" content="Your blue widget information">
<meta name="keywords" content="Keywords related to blue widgets">
The above tags are located in your HTML files. Remember, since your customers may be looking for different descriptions of the same product, you want to target each page differently. The goal is to get to the top of the search engines for YOUR terms.
It is rare for someone to look at more listings than the first 20. Most do not even search that far! The person looking to buy now will usually click on what is most convenient. That means it is essential to be placed on that first page of results.
Of the above tags, the title tag is the most important used in the optimization process. Make sure to use your important keywords for your product only once and limit the total character length of the title tag to 100. This tag will be seen on many of the Search Engine Results Pages (SERP’s), so make sure it reads sensibly.
The next tag is the description tag. Use two or three short sentences about your product or service. Do not use your keyword phrases more than twice. Some search engines will show all your description, others will show a percentage. So make sure it reads nicely from the beginning and does not take too long to get to the point.
Page 2 of Basics of Search Engine Optimization