Sunday, April 8, 2007

DIY Web Site Optimization And Promotion


By Deon Du Plessis

It seems like only yesterday when a couple of 'on site' tweaks could get you top search engine rankings with virtually any of your web pages. With the internet reaching a milestone of more than 29 billion websites, this most certainly is a thing of the past. Web site optimization and promotion today is a completely different ballgame altogether. Gone are the days of guaranteed search engine placements.

Before you get desponded, there is some light at the end of the tunnel. Although web site optimization and promotion became a much more complicated task, it is still well within any website owner's reach to achieve top search engine rankings. It all depends on how much time and money you are willing to spend. Regardless of your business, product or niche, there is always room for something that has real value.

I am constantly amazed by how many companies out there still provide so-called SEO services to 'desperate' website owners. It is important to distinguish between on-site optimization and off-site optimization. On-site optimization is very basic and includes all the things you can do to your actual webpage. These are things like your title tags, descriptions, image tags ec. In the end, on-site optimization counts for very little these days. It all boils down to off-site optimization. Not only is this the hard part, but it also represents there very crux of whether you get a page 1 or a page 100 listing with a search engine.

Off-site optimization is hard work, but the rewards are immense. Search engine traffic is still the best form of traffic for any website. Someone once told me that no one else will take care of my money like I would. This is very true and when it comes to your website this is even more so. Web site optimization and search engine promotion is best done by YOU. There are very few shortcuts and the majority of 'black hat' shortcuts will end up getting you banned by search engines. Once your site it banned it pretty much spells the end of your business.

Off-site optimization can be a daunting task without the help of the correct software. The thinking behind off-site optimization is that if the majority of websites in my niche like me then Google (or Yahoo or MSN) will also like me. There is absolutely no substitute for unique, quality content websites. If it's good, then eventually someone will catch unto it and there is simply no better marketing strategy than word of mouth. There are however some very good strategies for speeding up the rate at which the search engines find your site. With software like SEO Elite, virtually anyone can take their site to the top of the search engines – without all the usual hassles and guesswork.

With the help of software like SEO Elite, you can employ many different strategies for getting high search engine rankings. One of the most powerful features (that no other software package has) is to find out exactly why a website gets a top ranking with any of the major search engines. SEO Elite helps you to get underneath the workings of a specific site and by going 'back stage' you can learn exactly why a site has its ranking. All you have to do then is to copy and improve upon their strategy.

Although this sounds pretty simple, it still requires dedication and a fair amount of work. Ideally you would want to use this kind of software before you start building a website. This would allow you to get things right from the start and it really streamlines the process quite nicely. Getting high quality search engine traffic while you are still building your site is priceless. But whether you are reverse engineering a site or whether you are starting from scratch – know that web site optimization and promotion is not what it used to be. For the most part it is something that you have to do consistently and not some one-off task that someone else can do and 'voala' all your pages have #1 rankings. This just isn’t going to happen.

Not only CAN you do it yourself, but I believe that you should do it yourself. Whether you want to go it alone or whether you want to employ software, no one will care about your ranking the way you do. Even if the learning curve is a bit steep it is well worth it. In many ways the very crux of making money online lies in web site optimization and promotion.


Article by Sincere-Advice.com

To learn more about web site optimization and for some cutting edge web site promotion strategies, visit Sincere-Advice.com/top_ranking.html to get instant access to SEO Elite.

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