About Search Engines

How Search Engines Find Websites
by: Timothy Tye



One of the sweetest things for a webmaster is to go to a search engine - maybe Google, Yahoo, or MSN - type in a keyword, and voilà, they see their own website listed on the first page, or better still, ranked at the top of that page.

You can go to Google and type "Guide to earning a living without a job", you'd see that this website, HappyJoblessGuy, is ranked at the top spot of the first page. It's just less than 3 weeks since I started this website (many of you have followed it since Day 1, so you know I have not misrepresented the dates). How do I get there so fast? Well, that's what I want to share with you. And, if I can do it, so can you! But why should I teach you the secret? Because I firmly believe that everybody should have the opportunity to earn a living without holding a job. Whether or not you want to do it as a side income or a full time job is entirely your business. And what do I get in return? Quite honestly, I make HappyJoblessGuy into a very important website that helps lots of people.

I do say that, if this website provides you valuable lessons, please feel free to donate - especially after you have become successful. If asking for a donation makes the information not free, fine, regard what I am sharing with you as not free. In fact, regard it as priceless - you can name the price, any price, from zero dollars and more. In a future chapter, I will also show you how you can place a donation link on your website. If you are freely giving away valuable information that touches people's lives, you'd be pleased to see that some actually show their appreciation by donating back to you.

One of the easiest ways for you to earn money from home is through advertisements that appear on your website. I covered in the previous chapter how you can add Google AdSense to your website. If you are keen to see it happening, set up your website and apply for the AdSense account. Otherwise, all your success is a fragment of the imagination. I have seen it happening to my websites, now I am sharing this with you so that you can try it and start earning money too. But that's just the first step.

In order to be successful, your website needs one key ingredient: traffic. Yes, Virginia. No traffic equals no search engine ranking equals no money. Simple as that. And you know, you'd never get any traffic till you get a good ranking in Google and all the other search engines. But how do you do that? How do you get the search engines to find your website?

There are millions and millions of websites out there, how do the search engines find websites and rank each of them? That’s the whole purpose of this article, to supply you the answer. If you're on the verge of starting your own website, I hope it also provides you the motivation to get started. The reward is very sweet. Not only is there the pleasure of seeing your website listed for all the world to see, you also improve its traffic, and if you've added Google AdSense, it means getting more advertising dollars.

In the early years of the Internet, it was pretty easy to get a top rank on the search engines. Granted there were fewer webpages back then, search engines were also less sophisticated than they are today. If you ask me, do I prefer them now or back then, my answer to you is a resounding NOW. Although search engines today are more sophisticated - and there are more websites to compete with - today's technology allows for more relevant search results. Today's search engines are more sophisticated than years ago; now they are better able to recognize quality, and are not so easily fooled into ranking dubious websites. The likelihood that someone fools a search engine into providing his website an unfairly high ranking has diminished, and the likelihood of searchers finding the most relevant results has increased. How was this achieved, and how then can we increase the chances of our website to be listed?

The answer, quite simply, is by understanding how the search engines of today work.

There are many search engines out there, but the most popular are Google, Yahoo and MSN. Of these three, Google takes the lion share of all Internet searches - no small feat, considering Google was the newest player in the field. On the Internet, however, being newest does have its advantage. Google's search engine simply outshone the rest. It was more sophisticated and accurate. And looking at Google homepage, the search engine also appears deceptively simple. But behind that simple front lurks a mighty beast. As a result, close to half of all Internet searches today are done on Google. Yahoo is a distant second, MSN an even more distant third, and everybody else bites the dust. So if your webpage ever want to be anywhere significant on the web, it has to be ranked high on Google.

An entire industry has sprouted up to help people get their websites ranked high on the search engines. Many use honest ways to improve your website but there are also those that use dubious ways to try and fool the search engines. My advise to you is: don't ever try to fool the search engines. Search engines expect you to play by the rule, and if you let them catch you trying to fool them, they'd throw you out of the rankings faster than you can yell "Google!"

Rather than getting someone to help get your website ranked high in the search engines, however, I recommend that you learn to do it yourself. I may have mentioned it before but I'll say it again: you cannot be a captain who can't tell stern from starboard. You need the acquire the skill necessary to guide your website up the ranks, and I'm here to help you.

There is a lot to learn, and I'll break them down into different chapters:

- Choice of topic
- Content
- Keyword Density
- Search Engine Optimization
- Page Rank
- Back Links
- Promotion

In the subsequent chapters, I will go through with you how you can improve your website on each of the above areas. To reach these and other related articles, go to my website, HappyJoblessGuy.


About The Author
Timothy Tye began earning an income from the web when he launched his first website four years ago. Since then, he has started several successful websites that allow him to earn an income without holding a job. He believes that anybody can do it and shares useful tips and knowledge in his website, http://www.happyjoblessguy.com.



Optimizing Keywords for Search Engines
by: Rahman Mehraby



All SEO experts believe in the importance of optimizing keywords for search engines. Search engines need to know enough about your keywords so that they can help your pages visibility. If you're optimizing keywords for every page of your site, search engines help those pages be found as well.

How's Optimizing Keywords Done?

Before any other things, you need to select your keywords carefully and smartly. Keywords aren't the words or phrases that you invent. You have to discover what searchers are typing to find what they want. Then, you choose the closest to the content you want to write and write with those keywords in your mind.

Use a Variety of them

To distinguish individual pages of your site from each other, optimizing keywords for search engines can help. Every webpage on your website should have its own keywords or key phrases. Search engines, then, realize your pages are different from each other. Also, they see what the difference is.

On the other hand, in optimizing keywords for search engines, it will be very useful if the keywords of various pages on your site are similar and/or relevant. This, of course, will be the best SEO tactic in terms of optimizing keywords and will enhance the content relevancy on your site.

Optimizing Keywords or Key Phrases?

Today only the known brands or very successful websites use keywords successfully. Does it sound disappointing? Don't worry! What I mean is that one single word (common name) can hardly bring you targeted audience unless you're well-known or famous for that single work.

So, what's the solution? You have to get involved in optimizing keywords for search engines in a precise way.

Use a string of words, a key phrase. The longer a key phrase, the more targeted your site visitors. Of course, there's some limit to it! These days, three-word key phrase or even four-word key phrase is the best to have.

For example, "affordable search engine optimization India" brings more targeted customer to your site than "seo India" or "seo packages" if you're an SEO company in India trying to sell lower-priced search engine services in your country.

Where to Use them!

You've carefully been optimizing keywords for search engines by now. The outcome should now be used at your title tags, alt tags, first two headings, beginning and end of pages, middle of pages, menu links, inbound links, etc.

This doesn't mean that you stuff the above positions with your keywords. Of course, the more inbound links with your keywords in them, the more benefit you get, specially from quality web pages outside your website.

How to Use them!

Once you've decide what key phrases to use and where and completed optimizing keywords, stick to them as they are. Never split them up by adding a word in the middle of such strings or words.

Key phrases should have appropriate weight, frequency and density on your web pages, not more not less than necessary. Otherwise, they will be seen as inefficient or spam!

Therefore, you should be extremely careful about how to use keywords or key phrases at your web pages.

How to Use Keywords Appropriately!

After you've completely done optimizing keywords for search engines, you should use them sufficiently and efficiently. This is something that search engines will find out easily. You also need to use good softwares or hire SEO experts to adjust this crucial point at your website.

While you've put all the above tactics into action, in your web pages, you could expect more targeted visitors. Obviously, this ends in having more customers who find you and buy what you've got to offer.


About The Author
Rahman Mehraby is mainly focused on Website Assessment as an initial step before taking any SEO Packages. He writes articles to help webmasters gain higher organic search engine placement. Visit his website at: http://www.site-booster.com.