How to Get Higher SEO Rankings for Your Website

SEO is an acronym for Search Engine Optimization. When you enter a query into a search engine, a list of results will be returned that contain that query term. Websites that are at the top of the results list usually are visited first, since those are perceived to be most relevant to the query. This is Search Engine Optimization.

There are a variety of ways to get your website higher rankings in Search Engine Optimization. Below are a few examples:

•    Keywords: This is the most important step in getting your website to the top of the SEO rankings. Incorrectly targeting phrases can result in traffic that is not interested in your product, while correctly targeted phrases result in traffic that is highly interested in your content, and those people more than likely will return consistently. Think about who your target audience is. Target your keywords to attract that audience.
•    Site content: Create new content and update old content frequently. Before you start the optimization process, it may be helpful to create new content because it can reveal possible additions to your site that you may not have previously thought about. 
•    Site structure: Having a solid site structure is extremely important. You must think like a search engine crawler/spider when you are structuring your site. A spider/crawler reads your page from the top left, across, and then down; much like reading a book. With this in mind, you need to give priority to what you place near the top of the page.
•    Content optimization: Since the spider/crawler places importance to what it sees at the top of the page, you should begin your page with your targeted keyword or phrase. Just randomly placing keywords on your page doesn't work. Keyword density is defined as the percentage of your content that is made up of your targeted keywords. Estimates of keyword density range from 4-5% to 10-12%. You should keep your keywords in the content as much as you can while still keeping the content comfortably readable. You must also have a heading and subheadings in order to optimize your content for SEO. Headings and subheadings should probably also contain your targeted keywords or phrases. 

•    Internal linking: Text links to anchor text add relevancy to that page for the words used to link to it. An example of this would be for a website about diets and had a page for a specific diet, you could link to that page with an image or with text stating, "Click for more information on how to lose weight with (so-and-so) diet" or a link stating the name of the type of diet. When a search engine crawler/spider reaches that image on your page, it has no idea what the image is. It will follow the link but will not give any weight to the page it hits. So, you should always use your keywords or phrase to link to internal pages so that they carry the same weight as your home page does.
•    Human testing: Ask someone who has never seen your site to find specific information on your site, and see how long it takes them to get to that information. Ask someone else to browse your site and click links they find interesting, but ask them why they chose to click those particular links. You also need to ask them how comfortably readable the content is to them. 
•    Submissions: Submit your site to search engine directories on a regular basis.
•    Link-building: Placing links relevant to your content on your page is important for optimization, as well as linking with other sites. You will want to find links to websites with similar content to yours, and if you contact the webmaster of that particular site, he/she may link back to yours, and vice-versa.
•    Monitoring: You can use software or search manually to see where you are in the search rankings for your targeting keywords or phrase. If a good amount of time passes and there aren't any changes to your rankings, then you will need to change your strategy and revise your website and/or content.