Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for some can be a confusing, quite overwhelming concept. So to make your life a little easier I've listed and explained a few different ways you can optimize your web site and increase not only your traffic, but also your ranking within search engines. This is not a complete list of web site SEO and ranking concepts by far. There are thousands of articles and books on the subject, and hundreds of theories, however this will give you some of the ways that you can leverage your search engine position.

This is an 8 part series intended to assist beginner and experienced web site developers in Search Engine Optimization and increasing the flow of traffic to any given web site.

You can read it one page at a time or use the index below that will lead you to specific topics:

===========================

Page 1: Intro, Header Command, Where You Are Now
Page 2: ALT="" Command, Bolding, Back Linking
Page 3: Looping Links
Page 4: Meta Tags
Page 5: Text vs. Graphics, Reciprocal Links, Bigger IS Better
Page 6: Get Better With Age, K.I.S.S.
Page 7: Keywords
Page 8: Site Map, Summary, Top Ten Tricks

===========================

SEO is almost a science these days. It is also a lot of guesswork. Since companies such as Google, Yahoo, AltaVista, and other search engine providers do not want you to learn how to manipulate their systems to any large degree they won't tell you much. They are primarily interested in rating your web site based upon the quality and quantity of the content, plus a number of other factors addressed in this article.

Google by far offers the most assistance in my opinion. They will tell you to create site maps, a robot.txt file and offer a plethora of web management tools to help ensure that your site is properly constructed for maximum benefit to users and search engine spiders alike. Search Google the words google web master tools.

However they do not tell you how they rate sites in order for you to get first page results. On top of that they perform what is known as the "Google Shuffle" once or twice per year and after a "Shuffle" your site can drop like a hot rock from page one to page ten in an instant. There are however some basics that will always help bring you back up in ranking. In no particular order I have listed them throughout this series.

Use Of <H1>, <H2>, The Header Command:

Search engine spiders, when they come across content using the <H#> command they place a slightly higher rank on the content between the start and end of the <H#> command. They assume that since you're using a header/title command whatever actually is between the start and end of the command must be important.

If you think about it, it usually is important, such as the title of your site or what will follow on the rest of the page. Since you can't use <H#> commands everywhere you'll use them selectively. Make sure that what you place between the command's beginning and end truly does summarize the content beneath the command or your overall site. If it doesn't then the search engines will add a slightly lower rank to your site.

Read Part 2