Introduction to SEO

For many webmasters, practicing SEO, or search engine optimization, techniques is very important; it is the life and blood of their businesses, websites, and many of their revenue streams. Pay-per-click programs, such as Google Adsense, has brought on a flurry of SEO professionals to the internet world and has increased the amount of people who are now interested in creating websites for the sole purpose of making money. But along with using SEO practices comes the responsibility of actually adding something useful to the World Wide Web. Many people frown upon websites that are simply taking up space for the sole purpose of ranking well in Google, among many other search engines. For the purpose of this article, though, we will be focusing on Google as the search engine of choice when referencing search engines on the web.

If you are just getting into the business of SEO then there is a whole lot of SEO and webmaster jargon that you'll need to get used to if you want to survive. Additionally, most of this jargon language is crucial to creating a website that is easily crawlable (first SEO word!), read by users, as well as able to make money from one of the pay-per-click programs.

What it's all About

But the first important aspect that you should know about search engine optimization is essentially what it's about. These next few paragraphs will provide a basic rundown on SEO practices, but they will be discussed at a more in-depth level later on in the article. Nevertheless, one of the first webmaster terms that you need to understand in order to practice SEO for yourself is "crawling." Search engines, such as Google, MSN, Yahoo, Dogpile, as well as the Lycos and many others continue to use search engine crawlers in order to be able to configure and bring about their SERPs, or Search Engine Results Pages. In order to make your website that you've created "crawlable" then you must practice the search engine optimization techniques that all of the other webmasters already know about. By using specific tools, guidelines, and practices, you are now able to create a website that will be effectively crawled by Google, Yahoo, and others in order to obtain for you proper indexing and PageRank.

The term PageRank, though, is another term that you'll need to get used to. This is part of the end results of creating websites and PageRank essentially establishes your clout among the online community. The higher the PageRank you have in Google's eyes then the higher your website or page will rank in the search engine. There are also some basic principles for creating a site that has good PageRank; however, those guidelines will be discussed later on.

Nevertheless, these are some of the more important features and aspects about search engine optimizations that you should focus your efforts. If your whole goal is focusing on getting traffic from the search engines then these are some of the most important features about your website to be concerned with.

Three Crucial Elements of SEO Practices: Keywords, Backlinks, and Content

Now that you know what search engine optimization is all about then you are ready to start making websites for yourself in order to be successful with the search engines on the web. The three most important functions that you should focus most of your efforts when creating your websites are keywords, backlinks, and content. Even though all three of them are important, they were listed in no particular order and none of them are more important than the other, with the exception of the backlinks.

Keywords

Understanding what keywords are is a basic concept to grasp, but for the benefit of newbies to the Google Adsense and pay-per-click communities we will go through what each element is. Keywords are words that many people search for over a period of time in the search engines. For example, "birthday gifts" would be an excellent search phrase to use if you were looking for a gift for your friend or family member for their birthday.

Why are keywords important? They are very important for search engine optimization because not only do they help search engine crawlers read your page and figure out what it's about better, but it also contributes toward your rankings in the Search Engine Results Pages, or SERP. So in order to have your page ranked well in Google, for example, you may want to include the keyword that you are creating your websites for multiple times throughout your websites. Many professional webmasters recommend that a keyword density, or how many times a keyword is repeated in an article or website, should be between 3% and 5% for maximum exposure and readability to the search engines. Keywords are almost as important as backlinks, however, backlinks are pretty important to the SEO process.

Backlinks

As mentioned a couple times already, banklinks compose a majority of the "bread and butter" of search engine optimization techniques on the internet. If you don't have enough backlinks then it may affect your PageRank, however, if you have too many backlinks many search engines may simply record it as spam and not even consider your website while they're crawling.

But what are backlinks, exactly? These backlinks are essentially one-way links to your website that other webmasters and websites have decided to place within the content on their websites. For example, if your website is about "Redbull energy drink problems," then others who are interested in the negative effects of Redbull energy drinks may link to your site if you have enough reliable content to justify giving you a link on their site. These links, furthermore, are usually attached to certain keywords, like "Redbull energy drink problems," and once you receive a backlink from a website then you will do well for that specific keyword. Backlinks do affect your PageRank in a major way an this will also be explained later in the article.

Content

Even though keywords and backlinks are some of the main SEO techniques that you must work towards in order to achieve PageRank, thus increasing your exposure to traffic on the web, the content that you have on your website is very important as well. In fact, webmaster and SEO professionals are seeing that Google is going to be focusing a lot more of their efforts and considerations towards looking more favorably towards a website that has reliable content compared with a website that simply focuses on keyword stuffing, meta tags, and backlinks.

But what constitutes reliable and reputable content? For one thing, many people simply write articles that are filled with keywords that simply are poised to create a higher ranking in the search engine. Even though this is great for making money through a pay-per-click program like Adsense, many of these so-called articles don't contain true and reliable information. But as to how Google will implement this structure and criteria hardly anyone has figured out yet.

Submitting Your Sites to Search Engines

After you have created a website that is targeted towards the keywords that you want to rank for in Google or any other search engine then it is time to submit your website to Google in order to have it indexed and crawled. Keep in mind, however, that if you have multiple websites and sub-pages of your website then it may take months in order to fully complete the process. The main concern of webmasters after they have submitted their websites to Google, though, is to obtain backlinks, which are inbound links to your website. The more of these that you have then the faster your website will be crawled by Google.

In fact, one doesn't need to submit their website to Google directly in any way. If you are confident that your site will do well with the backlinks and inbound links that you already have then this is the route to go. But for many people and webmasters submitting them to Google directly through their "Add URL" page will help them get indexed quicker.

When you add your websites to Google and other search engines, however, the best way to do this is by hand by visiting the page mentioned above. There are plenty of other ways to obtain the same end result, though; there is much debate in the online and webmaster world about whether or not automated software detracts from how search engines see their pages. Since the end goal is to have a completely SEO website within Google, MSN, or Yahoo, automated submission sites and software may not be the way to go!

Adsense and SEO Practices

Another common question that many beginners in the SEO industry typically have is about Google Adsense. The question that gets asked a lot is whether or not having Adsense on your site helps or hurts your cause. However, the only thing that having Google Adsense on your website may do is help the search engine crawlers crawl your site better and more often. You won't be penalized for having Adsense on your site, however, especially because the whole goal of many webmaster and SEO beginners is to use search engine optimization to receive a revenue stream from Adsense in the first place.

About PageRank

The next thing that one needs to know about Search Engine Optimization, though, is how PageRank works into everything. But PageRank is essentially the byproduct of everything that has been previously aforementioned, and there are some important characteristics that search engine crawlers use in order to record PageRank of a website.

But what exactly is PageRank? In short, PageRank is essentially the value or popularity that it has with other websites. Since this is the case then the process of achieving PageRank would seem to be entirely "democratic," as Google itself puts it. And since PageRank is entirely democratic then the whole issue of PageRank rests with backlinks, or inbound links, coming to your site. Remember what was discussed about backlinks and inbound links in the beginning of the article? The other websites on the World Wide Web that decide to place a link on their site to yours essentially gives you a "vote." How many votes you get from all other sites combined is what establishes your PageRank, which also bumps you up into the high rankings of Google's search engine. Additionally, the higher the PageRank that you have then the more popular and respected your website will be.

Common Misconceptions about SEO Practices

After knowing all this, there are still many misconceptions about SEO practice that need to be put to rest. But with all the rules and guidelines about creating SEO targeted sites its no wonder that people may become confused. Nevertheless, though, here are some popular misconceptions and ideas:

* The more outbound links the better - Even though many webmasters would be overjoyed at the revelation to find out that the more outbound links they contain within their websites the better it will do within Google and other search engines, this simply isn't true. Not only do search engines not consider outbound links within a website, but they don't need to. Your outbound links that you place on your site are essentially an inbound link for someone else, so effectively that means that the link has already been counted.

* Websites with the ".com" extension rank better - This is also another very common misconception, and it is a clever one at that! It's not true, though, but many people make the mistake in thinking that they rank better simply because there are thousands more ".com" websites then there is ".info," or any other TDL extension. If you create a website with an extension other than ".com," for SEO purposes then you will be absolutely safe!

* A Website's Traffic Affects Rankings - Traffic is not considered in a website's ranking simply because it would be near impossible to figure out. Google does not keep public records of this kind of information, therefore, is not readily available for use. Furthermore, if traffic was a good indicator of a person's website's ranking then there would be no chance for mobility for anyone or any other website!

Hopefully all of the SEO practices and guidelines you have read about here will help you on your journey to becoming an expert webmaster and SEO professional. By using the three major SEO techniques of keywords, backlinks, and especially content on your website, then you should have no problem submitting it to search engine giant Google, among other search engines. Tried and true search engine optimization techniques not only will get you further with Google and other search engines rather than relying on dishonest and black-hat SEO techniques, but using these techniques can also give you a wide range of other benefits as well, including revenue streams, popularity, and authority within the World Wide Web!