I started doing Search Engine Optimization very recently, at the end of December 2005, at first I could not understand anything about it, when I started, I couldn't tell what was the difference between a Search Engine and a Directory! It was hard to believe that people has to do that much to get their website listed in Search Engines. I think all normal internet users don't realise this, what's important for them is that they get what they want from their searches.
Well I am still new in this field but I've already learned a lot and want to share some ideas and my point of view about the matter. To optimize your website you should follow these simple steps:
1. Search Engine and Directory Submission
2. Article Submission
3. Link Exchange
The motive of Search Engine Optimization is to get the maximum of links pointing to your website, that is more links pointing to you means better ranking in Search Engines. Traffic plays a big role in your ranking, there are many ways you can bring traffic to your website, posting your website to the maximum directories and Search Engines that you can. And be sure to post in the good category, if your website is not suggested in the good category, it has many chances of not getting listed. Article submission is also a very good way of getting traffic.
For those who are not familiar with these terms: A Search Engine is a searchable online database of internet resources. Some examples are www.google.com, www.yahoo.com, www.msn.com, www.altavista.com, www.askjeeves.com, etc there are really thousands of Search Engines on the net but these listed above are what surfers use most frequently (the major search engines). Among these google is the mostly used by internet users then yahoo, I personally do like 80% of my searches on Google and the rest on yahoo and very rarely on msn. It's important that you submit your website to these search engines, you can add your website to google here http://www.google.com/addurl.html
A Directory is a web page consisting mostly of categorized links to other web pages. Some examples of directories are www.dmoz.org (google directory is based on dmoz, it is important that you submit your website here, but there are very small chances of inclusion), the yahoo directory, www.zeal.com (you will need to follow some steps before you can start submitting websites to zeal, but it's worth the effort as Zeal has PR8) and so on and as for Search Engines, there are many directories where you can submit your website. The submission process is very easy but the real point is whether the directory will list your website or not. The best way to get your website listed is to read the guidelines well as you would not like spending all this time and not getting listed..
Article submission is another way to get traffic and links to your website. Write articles and submit to as many article directories as possible, try to write about things that people want to read, make them want more, well your article must reflect what's in your website, for e.g. if your website talk about wedding your article should also be about wedding not about any other subjects, you can give tips, or explain about the particular stuff, anything that you want as long as it is interesting. It doesn't need to be long articles of more than 1000 words from 500 words should be fine.
You can also exchange link with websites having the same subject as yours, contact only websites with good PR (Page Rank) I suggest 3 or more as exchanging links with a website with PR0 will be useless as itself is not having much traffic, how will it be able to bring traffic to your website? And the website you've been exchanging links with try to verify regularly if your link is still on their website as they may remove your link as you've added a link back to them.
You now have an idea of what SEO means, it's very interesting and I really enjoy doing, what I find more time consuming till now is Link Exchange as you have to wait a lot until a person reply to you. You can start doing SEO for your website. Good Luck.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Please feel free to republish this article provided you keep this resource and the hyperlink.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------