What is Search Engine Optimization? (SEO)

Search Engine Optimization is the process of making changes to the coding of a website in order to rank better in the search engine results page. There are many steps involved in the process, many of which include the following:

W3C Validation
Proper naming structure of files for search engines
Proper phrasing of the page title
Inclusion of a robots.txt file
Creation of a sitemap
404 error handling page
Meta tags
Relevant site copy to page title
Site navigational structure

While this is a short list, there are many considerations that have to accounted for when optimizing your website. A knowledgeable Search Marketer should be able to determine what would be the best process to get your site coded in a search engine friendly fashion.

What is Search Engine Marketing? (SEM)

Search Engine Marketing is the process of getting targeted traffic to your site by getting exposure of your site through various channels. Here are some examples of getting exposure for your site:

Press Releases
Article Writing
Blogs
Engaging in a link campaign
Directory Submission
Purchasing Text Links
PPC Campaigns
Banner Advertising
RSS/XML Feeds

A knowledgeable Search Marketer should be able to determine what would be the best process to market your site and get the most of your marketing budget.

Google Tricks

Enter just the word http for your search to find the top 1000 PageRanked sites.

Enter only www in your search to see how Google ranks the top 1,000 sites.

Manually type the following prefixes and note their utility:

link:url Shows other pages with links to that url.

related:url same as "what's related" on serps.

site:domain restricts search results to the given domain.

allinurl: shows only pages with all terms in the url.

inurl: like allinurl, but only for the next query word.

allintitle: shows only results with terms in title.

intitle: similar to allintitle, but only for the next word. "intitle:seoforgoogle google" finds only pages with seoforgoogle in the title, and google anywhere on the page.

cache:url will show the Google version of the passed url.

info:url will show a page containing links to related searches, backlinks, and pages containing the url. This is the same as typing the url into the search box.

spell: will spell check your query and search for it.

stocks: will lookup the search query in a stock index.

filetype: will restrict searches to that filetype. "-filetype:pdf" to remove Adobe PDF files.

daterange: is supported in Julian date format only. 2452384 is an example of a Julian date.

maps: If you enter a street address, a link to Yahoo Maps and to MapBlast will be presented.

phone: enter anything that looks like a phone number to have a name and address displayed. Same is true for something that looks like an address (include a name and zip code)

site:www.somesite.net "+www.somesite.+net" - (tells you how many pages of your site are indexed by google)

allintext: searches only within text of pages, but not in the links or page title

allinlinks: searches only within links, not text or title

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Resources

A free listing of SEO Resources that will help you get your site ranked in the search engines.
As always, if you know of a resource that you think should be on this page, drop me a line, and if it's up to snuff, it will get listed.

Make Money From Google

Press Release & Article Sites

Press Release Tips

Buy Text Links

Traffic Generating Sites