Page 158 - 597 Business Ideas You can Start from Home - doing what you LOVE! (Beginner Internet Marketing Series)

1 50 You r Idea, I nc.

S earch E ngine Optimiz ation (SEO)

Once your website is up and running, investigate an Internet func­
tion called search engine optimization (or SE�), which refers to
your site's ability to get the most quantity and quality of traffic from
the search engines. SE�'s main component is the keywords that
people enter to find information online. Optimizing your website to
get the best results from search engines mainly involves the coding
within the content of the website so that the search engines easily
find keywords within your site.

For example, if someone goes to www.google.com and wants to

find moisturizing gloves, she may type in the keywords "moistur­
izing gloves." As you've seen, Google will return countless options.
The goal of SE� is to get your company to be at the top of the "free"
results list (the "Sponsored Links" of a Google search are paid for).
SE� optimization experts plant keywords throughout your site that
the search engines will "crawl" and pick up, therefore raising your
position on the free pages.

Your search engine ranking (where your website appears on search
results) is a result of complicated and ever-changing systems developed
by the search engines. Many companies can handle advanced search
engine optimization (for a fee, of course). Some well-known companies

are www.bruceclay.com, www.seoinc.com, and www.seomoz.org.

You don't need to master the inner workings of SE�. Just know
that it is vital that your web building team understands SE� well
so that they set up your website accordingly. It can make the differ­
ence between your site appearing on page 20 of the Google search
results or page 1 .

Sl ogging

A blog is a website set up like a j ournal with frequent entries or
updates about a particular topic. Blogs are interactive-viewers can
read the content and make a comment about what's been "blogged."
Many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject;
others function as personal online diaries.