More than 40 percent of U.S. consumers research their purchase online1; and 80 percent of U.S. consumers’ Web usage starts at a search engine2. Is your site optimized for search engines? If it’s not, you’re missing out on two tremendous opportunities—successful search advertising and higher organic search result listing placement.
This eight-page guide to the basics of search engine optimization (SEO) will help you on both counts—regardless of search engine. Here a few of the things you’ll learn when you read the full document:
Have a Good Site Map
Site maps can ensure that crawlers can find all of the pages they’re looking for—and it makes it easier for people who get to your site through a search ad to find the information they need.
A Redirect is a Redirect, Right?
There are many ways to configure a redirect including HTTP, Meta Refresh and JavaScript. HTTP is a redirect that is handled by a Web server and the other two are handled on the client side (e.g. by the browser). You can have better success in all of your pages being crawled if you use an HTTP redirect.
The Art of Getting Indexed
When your site is crawled, there are a number of things you can do—like keep your page sizes smaller than 150 KB, have text on the page, and write strong meta-descriptions—to make your site more index-friendly.
It is a Popularity Contest
There are two things that affect page ranking in organic search results listings—on page data and off page data. In other words, what you say about yourself and what others think about what you have to say (by linking to you) is important to a pages’ ranking.
Search Engine Optimization Resources
Don’t forget that you can keep up with the latest tips and tricks by attending a conference like
Search Engine Strategies (SES).
Find out how
Live Search, powered by Microsoft adCenter, brings active Internet users to your site.
Register now to see what adCenter can do for you today.
