When you first start selling online, SEO (search engine optimization) is a phrase you see everywhere, but in reality what exactly does it mean?

This is a quick introduction to SEO basics:

Meta tags - Each and every web page on your site should have it's own unique page title, description, keywords etc.. Remember to keep descriptions short and to the point.

Although keywords are less important these days you should still add them. Use 25 or less per web page, and make sure you use different ones for different pages on you website.
You can see the meta tags for web sites by clicking "view" and then "page source" in your browser menu.

Meta tags look like this:

Page Title:
< title>Showbiz, entertainment and media news - Digital Spy< /title>
Meta Description:

< meta name="description" content= "Entertainment news about the biggest TV shows, films and celebrities, updated around the clock." / >

Meta Keywords:
< meta name ="keywords" content="showbiz, big brother, x factor, torchwood, doctor who, tv, media, sky, freeview, cable" / >
If you're having problems spotting meta tags amongst the code, then click ctrl F and search for "meta" on the web page.

Links
You build links to your website - one way links are links from one website to you - reciprocal links are links where a site links to you and you link back

SEO "hats"

White hat seo ~ good natural ways of optimizing your website, like using meta tags, writing good content and gaining quality backlinks from related websites.

Black hat seo ~ sneaky and not so honest ways of optimizing your website which can get ultimately get you banned from search engines. This includes naughty stuff like using white text on a white background to add lots and lots of keywords to a site which are only visible to search engines.