For any business with an online presence, the key to increasing site traffic, as well as, increasing sales and profits, is by utilizing search engine optimization. The way to do this is by educating yourself on what tactics do and do not work in terms of optimizing your site and increasing search page rank. This article contains a number of search engine optimization tips.

When using SEO on a page that has images, be sure to make ample use of the tag. Search engines cannot view images and so cannot index them. However, if you include relevant text in the tag, the search engine can base it’s guess about the image on that text and improve your site’s ranking.

There is no sense in optimizing your site for “hooded sweatshirts” if your target market calls them “hoodies.” You simply must know what words people are actually using, not what you think they use. One invaluable tool in your quest is Google Insights, which will show you, in incredible detail, patterns of Google searches, either globally or by country, stretching back to 2004. Get a solid handle on the words people ACTUALLY use to find what they’re looking for and you can have confidence in the keywords that you choose for SEO.

If your site has a defined set of categories, optimize the URLs on your site to contain the keywords associated with the categories. Say you have two categories, cats and dogs. Google likes it better if the URLs for such a site are mysite.com/cats and mysite.com/dogs as opposed to something like mysite.com?category=1. Even more importantly, people searching for a keyword associated with one of the categories are more likely to arrive at one of your subpages when you use a logical URL structure.

To know if your search engine optimization is working or not, it’s important to keep an eye on your search rankings. Use tools from different search engines to monitor your page rank. Look at your site’s referrer log on a regular basis to see where visitors are coming from and what terms are leading them to your site.

There are many places you can include keywords to optimize a page’s search engine performance: No place is more important than the title of the page. While all keyword mentions are taken into account, keywords in the title are heavily weighted. A quick research trip will show you that few pages make it to the top of the search results without having relevant search terms right in their titles.

Today most search engines are capable of indexing Flash content on a website, but be cautious in using it on your site. Flash content simply does not index as well or as completely as HTML. For optimal search engine ranking make sure your site relies primarily on plain HTML, and only use Flash for non-essential bonus content.

Every link on a website that leads to an external site should be validated regularly. Links that point to missing content (broken links) are bad news. Not only are broken links annoying to website visitors, they are penalized by search engine indexing algorithms. Fixing or deleting broken links improves a website’s position on the search engine results pages.

Never fluff it up. No one likes off topic tangents or irrelevant information- not readers, search engines, or article directories. Even if your article may end up shorter than you intended, do not add extra information that does not belong there. Get to the point and keep it there to draw the most attention.

Focus your page on a keyword phrase, not your entire site. Try to have each page centered on a particular keyword and keyword phrase. Your site will rank higher if you go this route as trying to build an entire site around a single keyword ends up reading as a spam site.

Put yourself in your customer’s shoes. If you were looking for your website, what key words would you use? Once you’ve come up with a list, use them around your website. You can use the keywords in the site’s content, as well as page and paragraph titles, but keep in mind that excessive use of keywords can give search engines a negative impression, and make it rank lower in search results. Balance is the key to a well-made site.

Joining local groups such as the Chamber of Commerce can not only give your business more credibility, but it can also boost your rankings in the search engines. Local searches can be made easier if you are apart of the BBB. Having a positive rating through the renowned Better Business Bureau can boost consumer trust in your business.

Experienced webmasters often run more than one site. For the best search engine performance across a network of websites, savvy owners will make sure that their different sites are thoroughly linked to each other. Website networks offer considerable SEO advantages; the value of an external link does not depend on who owns the two sites it connects.

When using Twitter, employ a URL shortener that utilizes a 301 redirect to ensure you’re getting the full benefits of the inbound link. bit.ly provides great statistics in addition to using the 301 redirect, and therefore is an excellent choice. You can keep track of the click-through numbers on each link that you shorten.

Search engine optimization, also known as SEO, might sound confusing but with a little practice it can become something that is more than easy! SEO involves writing articles with keywords in the proper place and with the right amount of keyword density. Search engine optimization can be accelerated with backlinks, tags and even social networking. You have to pay more attention to how your articles and content are being written!

Search engine optimization is important for online success. It helps you rank highly on search engines and if anybody it going to buy your product, click your ads or even give you a donation they absolutely have to be able to find your website in the first place. Most people do go beyond the first search results page and rarely beyond the second page. Do yourself a favor and make your webpage more available to potential readers with SEO.

As was mentioned earlier in this article, the key to your website’s performance, is search engine optimization. If your site is properly optimized, it will increase its search page rank and, as a result, will have many more daily visitors. The more visitors you have to your site, the more profit you will make. Apply the search engine optimization advice contained in this article and you will be on your way to increasing your site’s traffic and making a lot more money.