Search engines run automated programs, called “robots” or “spiders” that use the hyperlink structure of the web to “crawl” the pages and documents that make up the World Wide Web. Once a page has been crawled, its contents can be indexed. It is stored in a giant database of documents that makes up a search engine's “index”. When a request for information comes into the search engine, the engine retrieves all the documents from its index that match the query. Once the search engine has determined which results are a match for the query, the engine's algorithm (a mathematical equation commonly used for sorting) runs calculations on each of the results to determine which is most relevant to the given query.

Definitions of Common Terms Algorithm – A mathematical formula or equation for solving problems such as sorting large data sets. Directory – A categorized, descriptive list of website links, usually created and compiled by human editors. Domain name - A host name that provides a more memorable identifier than an IP address. Index - A search engine's database of web page content. IP (Internet Protocol) Address - A unique number that web browsers use to identify and communicate with web servers. Keyword – A term or phrase entered as a query into a search engine. Organic Results - Search results compiled from the search engine index. Robots & Spiders – Automated programs which crawl the internet collecting and indexing web pages. Paid Placement Results - Sponsored search results paid for by commercial entities and placed near the top of the organic results. SEO – Search Engine Optimization SEM – Search Engine Marketing SERP – Search Engine Results Pages URL (Uniform Resource Locator) - Synonym for a website address such as a domain name or I. P. Address.

Accessibility A search engine must be able to access the site in order to add a website URL to its index. Accessibility blockages are technologies or page elements past which a search engine spider cannot crawl. Robots exclusion and redirects are significant ways to manage how search engines access and index websites.

Dynamic URLs and query strings URLs contain query string elements such as & or ? to dynamically retrieve data may not allow access to search engine crawlers. Web pages' content with generated URLs may not be searchable.

Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Search engine crawlers are unable to access web pages encrypted using SSL protocols.

Javascript Search engine crawlers do not follow links or page navigation written using JavaScript.

Cookies and session Ids Search engine crawlers do not accept cookies or work with session identifiers. Web pages requiring cookies or session IDs for access will not be searchable.

Roadblocks (Lynux browser/viewer, Firefox browser)

Spider limits Most search engine crawlers limit the page size or number of characters they will crawl. Decrease the size of large web pages by moving JavaScript and CSS to external files.

Broken links Search engine crawlers don't crawl past broken links.

Sitemaps A sitemap is a web page that lists and links to all of the pages of a site. Search engine crawlers can easily and effectively index a site using a sitemap. Sitemaps are useful for sites with content that is inaccessible due to dynamic URLs, SSL, or other roadblocks. Limit the number of links in a sitemap fewer than 100 or build sitemaps around groups of pages.

Non-HTML documents Documents such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Adobe PDF can be indexed by search engine crawlers. Assign a metadata title to Adobe and Microsoft documents using the File>Properties dialog.

Canonical URLs Search engine will consider to have duplicate content and deduct the relevance score of both if both URL forms serve up the same pages. Use Server (301) redirects to point alternate form URLs to the canonical URL without relevance penalties.

Redirects Redirect instructions tell web browsers and crawlers to move on to a new or revised URL. Server 301 redirects are server-side permanent redirect instructions which search engine spiders will follow. Server 302 redirects are server-side temporary redirect instructions and most search engines will ignore them. Meta-refresh and JavaScript redirects are often used unethically to "cloak" content, and most search engine crawlers ignore them.

Robots exclusion The Robots Exclusion Protocol is a method that allows site administrators to indicate to visiting robots which parts of their site should not be visited. Robots can be admitted or excluded on a site-wide, directory by directory, or page by page basis, using the robots.txt file or robots meta tag.

Indexes and Directories Getting a site indexed into a crawler-based search engine is best accomplished by being well linked to from other sites in that search engine's index. Some search engines charge to be manually indexed. Submitting to most directories will also result in indexing with the major search engines. Registering with Google Webmaster Tools (formerly Google SiteMaps) is another way to ensure inclusion in the Google index. Getting indexed into the university search engine requires registering with the university webmaster and being a compliant with university web policy. The root URL for that site must be included in one of the search engine collections in order for any web page to be indexed by the university's Ultraseek search engine. Directories are search engines powered by human beings. Human editors compile all the listings that directories have. The two principal directories include Yahoo! Directory and the Open Directory Project (DMOZ). Thousands of smaller specialty directories also exist. Submitting to the Yahoo! and DMOZ directories is useful for sites with highly competitive target content, and for sites without quality inbound links. Submitting to special directories is especially useful for sites with unique content matched specifically to the target audience of a particular directory. Before being submitted to a directory, sites should be completed It must be written in correct HTML with no broken links. It must be viewable on a range of browsers, operating systems, and screen resolutions. A twenty-five word or less description should be prepared which includes the two or three keywords the site is intended to target, but should avoid marketing style language.

Usability & Search Friendly Design Usability is simply how easy a site is to understand and navigate. Many of the same principles which contribute to the usability of a site by human visitors also makes a site more accessible by search engines. Defining your target content and target audience is an important step in optimizing your website.

Target audience The potential visitors and users of your site who may benefit from the content provided on your site.

Target content The information, products or services you offer, and the processes required to provide them to your users. Landing page Any point of entry into your site.

Conversion The end goal of a visit to your site, or what you hope the users of your site will do. This may be a purchase, course registration, file download, or simply a page view.

Conversion path The process or steps required to guide a visitor from the point of entry to your site to the point of conversion. Visitors to websites often enter at pages other than the site's home page. Understanding where within your site potential visitors may land is crucial to optimizing your site for their visit. Usability includes structuring your site so that your target users can easily move from landing page to conversion.

Meta-data Meta-data refers to information about a website contained in the website code but not displayed by browsers. Meta-tags are the individual HTML elements which help search engines classify and rank web page content.

HTML page title The HTML page title is one of the most critical factors for optimizing a web page for top search engine results. A unique page title should be crafted for each landing page within a site. The page title should correspond closely to the target content of the page.

Description tag The HTML description tag contains information about a web page and its contents. HTML descriptions are often displayed as part of a search engine's results page. Most search engines place low importance on description tags. The description tag should correspond closely to the target content of the page.

Keywords tag The keywords tag allows for additional placement of keywords into the HTML header. Most search engines place little or no importance on the keywords tag.

Other HTML elements Other HTML elements include the H1 header tag, image alt tags, and body text. Very little importance is given to these elements, but including them could help to slightly increase placement in search results pages for highly competitive terms.

Inbound Links and URL Popularity An important factor for establishing ranking within search engine results pages is the popularity of a site on the web. It is considered a “vote” when there is link to your site from another site. The more links to your site, the more votes you receive. Your site will get higher rank from the search engines. Search engine algorithms consider the quality of every inbound link and the quantity as well. A few links from highly ranked sites will count more than many links from low ranked or dubious sites. Remote anchor text refers to the words used to describe where the link is pointing. Search engines understand the relationship between the source and destination of the link and the text contained in the link. It is ignored or discounted when links containing text don't match the content found at the destination. The search engines consider the age and reliability of a website domain name and it plays a role on how well a site is ranked. Minimally optimized pages within older, more popular sites may rank higher than well optimized pages within new sites.

"Black Hat" Search Engine Optimization Black Hat search engine optimization is techniques that are used to get higher search rankings in an unethical manner. Unscrupulous optimization techniques designed to gain an unfair advantage, or for purposes other than legitimate information retrieval, are called "Black Hat" techniques, and are usually penalized by the search engines.

Invisible text Using white text on white backgrounds or other methods to hide keywords in order to increase rank or mislead crawlers.

Keyword stuffing Adding extra keywords to meta-data or alt-tags.

Duplicate pages Serving the same content from multiple host names.

Domain cloaking Serving up different content to search engines than is served up to ordinary users. This technique is often used by the adult entertainment industry.

Link farms Publishing web pages containing hundreds of links to your site in order to inflate inbound link popularity. Most search engines, set a spam detection threshold for keyword repetition.

Reaching your audience or your audience finding you?

Google returns more than 240 Million search results in the US every day. Optimizing your ranking in search results is an important component of your marketing and promotion if you want to connect wit h your audience. SEO techniques will help you build your content so that the content is easy to find when someone searches for what you have to offer.

Search Engine Optimization is the process of structuring content so your audience can easily find and use your published information.

Successful SEO depends on your ability to intelligently apply the principles of good structured information design. SEO isn't something you do to search engines; SEO is what you do to your content so that the content is accessible and useful for real users.

SEO is a process that is never finished. You must intentionally incorporate SEO into your publishing work flow. SEO is not an afterthought or something you can "add" to a site as a last step.

Good SEO begins the moment you decide that you want to publish.

SEO is a service you provide your audience and a way for you to measure how well you are serving your audience.

SEO is only useful if you have good content. SEO does not put lipstick on a pig. Delivering good original content from trusted sources is the work of search engine companies like Google and Yahoo! Search engines do not serve their clients by delivering mediocre or misleading content. If you do not have good content, no amount of SEO work will build long-term value.

Look at SEO in small, bite-size pieces. For example, instead of looking at your site as a whole, look at each page on the site. Prioritize those pages, and then plan your SEO around each page's priority. Taking a single page into consideration helps to eliminate the “everything has to happen right now” issue and makes it possible for you to create an SEO plan that will maximize your web site's potential in the minimum amount of time.

Top priority pages should be the ones that your visitors will most naturally gravitate to, such as your home page, or pages that will generate the most in terms of traffic or revenue. When prioritizing pages, you're also creating a roadmap for your marketing efforts. If three of the pages on your site are your top priority, those three will have the lion's share of time, capital, and effort when it comes to SEO and marketing.

Business people who refuse to look honestly and clearly at their business waste big amount of money every year. They only follow the day to day routine such as ordering, paying bills, selling, putting out fires. The businesses struggle and decrease because planning has been put off. You must consider a good marketing planning process to avoid this to happen. As you study the various aspects, you'll find the online business energized and perhaps radically changed in the period of few months. It is important to do website planning steps.

You need to start at the beginning, at the strategic planning level. If you're planning an Internet start-up, this is where you must start. If you have a larger business, say a web site, that sells custom-made-silk-flower arrangements, one way to increase your business (some estimate by more than 50 percent) is to invest time, money, and considerable effort into optimizing your site for search. Just don't do it without a goal in mind.

In the case of the silk-flower web site, one goal might to increase the amount of traffic you web site receives. Another might be to increase your exposure to potential customers outside your geographic region.

Those are both good reasons to implement an SEO plan. One other reason you might consider investing in SEO is to increase your revenues, which you can do by funneling site visitors through a sales transaction while they are visiting your web site. SEO can help with that, too.

Core Competencies Under gird Your Online Competitive Advantage

The first question to ask when you start a website plan is not “How can I make a million dollars on the Interest?” instead, it's “What you're good at?” That is where your business begins. “Just Who Are You Anyway” article will help in developing a USP (Unique Selling Proposition).

The biggest problem with e-businesses is not the flaky webpages. It is the businesses who haven't differentiated themselves from their competitors.

Clarifying Goals for Your E-Business

Before you even begin to put together an SEO plan, the first thing you need to do is determine what goal you want to achieve with that plan. Be sure it is well-articulated and specifically defined goal, too. The more specific, the closer you will come to hitting it.

Just what do you expect to get out of your e-business this year? Or over the next several years? Setting some realistic goals is a crucial step. Website planning is good to combine in setting these realistic goals of your business.