Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has been quickly become an important concept in the public relations world. The way in which the public interacts with the information around them is important in understanding how to driving traffic to a Web site. Now, that Wikipedia article is a little technical, but the page itself can help us understand what SEO means.



The numbered points in the image above show five of the important bits of text that search engines crawl the best.

1) Meta title. This is the title of the page as understood by your Web browser. When you enter a search term, Google first browses its catalog of these meta titles.

2) URL. We all know what a Universal Resource Locator is. It's the address of the site. It also helps a search engine decide which results to show you first.

3 and 4) Page Text. It's important that the text in the page also match the key terms that you want your page to be associated with. Google, Yahoo! and AOL use an inverse pyramid to decide what's important on any given page. Pepper your first two paragraphs with terms that match what search strings you want to be associated with, and you're more likely to be found.

5) Hyperlink. Links also draw the attention of search engines. They also draw the attention of the eye and make your text more scannable.

6) Meta tags. These are the keywords that you want to be associated with the particular page you are optimizing. These words should match the Meta Title, URL, Page Text and Hyperlinks in descending level of importance.

I know this post was as dry as carne seca, but I think it will be useful. After all, look what happens when you search for Featurism (I hope I'm still at number two).

Catch you at the next Feature.