Ever wonder why your Web site doesn't show up when people search for related keywords and phrases in the major search engines? Confused why you are continually buried fifteen pages deep in the search results? Well, we can give a reason... in fact, we can give you about a dozen reasons why.
Why is search engine optimization (SEO) or search engine marketing (SEM) even important? The answer is simple. According to a study by Jupiter Media Metrix, there were an estimated 114 million Internet users online in the United States at work or at home in March of 2002. Approximately 80 percent of them made some type of search engine request during that month. So, if you want to drive traffic to your Web site, the search engines offer 91 million potential customers.
So, let's get back to the reasons why your Web site may not be getting optimal placement in the search engines. You can divide the major elements of a Web site into six categories: title, meta tags, body copy, images, links, and miscellaneous items. Each category has between four and twenty-four elements that the major search engines use in their algorithms.
Let's consider the title on each page. It's worth noting that this text may be case sensitive. In addition, the page titles should:
- fit within the character length guidelines
- consist of the most important keywords
- not contain stop words
- not have a significant repetition of keywords
The body copy should consist of between 150 and 600 visible words, have a keyword density between 2% and 4%, should not make use of text with a small font size, and should not use text with a similar color as the background.
To make matters even more difficult, the search engines are continually changing the rules in an effort to improve the relevancy of results. Remember, they are selling a product also. If their product is not producing the results the web surfer wants, they will not be selling their services for long.
