Search Engines

Every time you log on to the World Wide Web and search for something, no matter how bizarre, you are using a search engine. Even the most amateur of computer users soon get to know some of the most common words, Google, Yahoo and the like. A search engine attempts to bring organization to what could otherwise be only classed as chaos.

So how does a search engine work, and how can you make a search engine work for your advantage? Well, did you know that a search engine can read? They don’t read like humans read, you know, with eyes and stuff, but they use spiders to go out and crawl around the web looking for the words you are searching for. Incidentally, without search engines you wouldn’t really be able to find anything at all on the World Wide Web without knowing a specific URL, so that gives you some indication of just how useful they are, especially if they can work to your advantage.

Search Engine Optimization

If you are running a business with a website then there are certain things which you can do to get your website at the top of the heap, so to speak. Just imagine if you are, for instance, in the business of selling personalized stationery, and every time somebody searches for personalized stationery online your site comes up first, just think what a boost that would be for your coffers. Search engine optimization is the art of getting your website to the top of the pile as quickly as possible, and there are things you can do to help you to get there.

1. The buzzword is keywords. You need to know what keywords people put in to search for, and then make sure that you’ve got shed loads of them in your writing – make sense?
2. SEO Friendly Title Tags – a bit like the tag on your designer jeans, but different. When your webpage gets into the search engine results, the title tag will be right there alongside it
3. SEO Friendly Description Meta Tag – This is a couple of sentences which describe your web page, now, you need to have your keyword in there lots of times but it’s also got to make sense. Remember, you need the search engine spider to find your web page, but then real people will actually be reading it! Tricky?

So you see, it can be a fine line between search engine optimization (SEO) and having a webpage which people will actually want to read and, God forbid, buy things from. The internet really is running in a parallel universe to the rest of us, you need the spider to be able to read your keywords, but you need people to read and make sense of the text, after all, it’s the people and not the spiders who actually make your business a success (but the spiders help to get them there).

Confused, you’re certainly not on your own, but it all makes perfect sense once you’ve mastered the art of keywords and search engine optimization.