Building a Home Internet BusinessSEO: Optimizing your site for the search enginesOne of the most important aspects of building a home internet business is SEO or Search Engine Optimization.SEO can be divided intro two categories: "on-page" optimization, involving the creation and manipulation of your web page content, and "off-page" optimization, which primarily involves links pointing to your site from other sites. On this page, I will concentrate on off-page optimization. Check here for more on on-page SEO.
In order to understand SEO, you must first have an idea of how search engines like Google and Yahoo rank websites in their search results.
How Google ranks sites in the search resultsSearch engines like Google and Yahoo make money primarily by selling ads in their "Sponsored Links" sections.
[An example of these sponsored links is the region marked in yellow in the picture below.]
But while the search engines make their money off people clicking on these paid links, it is the remainder of the search results, the unpaid or "organic" search results that are what get the most clicks. When building a home internet business, we are most concerned with these organic search results, since ranking in them costs you nothing at all. That's right, you can rank at the very top of the organic search results in Google, Yahoo, MSN, and the other major search engines, and get all that traffic for absolutely free!
The trick is knowing how to do it, and that is where SEO comes into play. SEO is an integral part of building a home internet business.
In the screen shot of a Google search results page above, the area in yellow is known as the organic search results section. These organic (non-paid) search results are the bread and butter of Google, Yahoo, MSN, and every other major search engine. It is vital to the survival of a search engine that these organic results be as relevant to the given search term as possible. So how do search engines determine which sites are relevant? (And, more importantly, when building a home internet business, how can you make your site seem relevant enough to be ranked at the top of the search results?) Search engines do attempt to evaluate the on-page content of a website in order to match this content to to term being searched (in the example in the screen shots above, the search term was "Search Engine Optimization".) But perhaps more importantly, the search engines determine which other sites are linking to your site. In a nutshell, the more relevant and quality sites that link to yours, the higher your site will rise in the search rankings. Google assigns a rating to each web page known as Pagerank, which is a measure of the quality and quantity of links pointing to your site from other sites. Pagerank, which is measured on a scale from 0-10, is one of the major criteria used by Google to determine your site's place in the search results (other search engines use similar formulas, but they are not made public). Therefore, it is important that you build links into your site from quality, relevant sites in your niche. There are several ways to accomplish this:
In addition, you can sign up for this free link exchange and add even more relevant links. Due to an effect known as the "Google Sandbox", it can take up to 6 months or even longer to see the full benefit in the Google search results. Therefore, the sooner you get started building links, the sooner you will start seeing free traffic flow in from the search engines. Intelligent SEO and link building are an essential part of building a home internet business. Proper SEO will help ensure that your site is successful and profitable.
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