A Beginner’s Guide to SEO Basics

                                                        SEO Knowledge Base

Every business with a Web site should make Search Engine Optimization -- trying to get your site as high up as possible on Google and Bing search-results pages -- a part of their growth strategy.

At its most basic, "SEO" means finding ways to increase your site's appearance in web visitors' search results. This generally means more traffic to your site.While intense SEO can involve complex site restructuring with a firm (or consultant) that specializes in this area, there are a few simple steps you can take yourself to increase your search engine ranking.All it requires is a little effort, and some re-thinking of how you approach content on your site.Search engine optimization--the canny use of keywords and other techniques designed to shoot a website to the top of a search--is the make-or-break factor for many new businesses.

It is also the web's unfolding, and unregulated, frontier. There are countless SEO strategists, consultants and self-professed experts who will claim they can beam your site up into Google's top 10 search results--for a price, of course.First, experts generally agree that SEO firms are most worthwhile at the development stage of a website. For example. looking for the elements that will get you to the top of a search--clean URLs, site maps, heading tags, page titles. Ideally, he says, someone like him helps lay a solid, searchable foundation for a site as it's being constructed. Beyond that, Kent and other experts don't see much value in contracting with an SEO firm. "Once you optimize the website and everyone on the team understands what needs to be done, there should be no cost moving forward,