When you search for something on the internet using a search engine, how often do you go past the first page of results? If you’re like most people, you don’t need to go past page one to find what you want. And that’s why your website needs search engine optimization, or SEO. Here are a few ways to make sure your site shows up at the top of the list.

Increase your website traffic and the revenue from your site by ensuring it has no broken links or pages. Broken links prevent customers from navigating your site. Broken pages are even worse, since then the content is just missing. Broken content can’t be indexed by search engines either, which is also poor marketing.

To get a gauge on if your SEO is working, you have to monitor your standings. Monitor with a tool such as Google taskbar to best keep an eye on your page rank. You’ll also want to have an idea of where your site visitors are coming from and which key words they’re typing in to find you.

Provide links to other websites and blogs to increase your views. If you have an active linking system, you will improve your search results within the major search engines. Find articles that you like that relate to your content and add links to them. Be sure however to keep your page from becoming just a page of links or you’ll lose your viewers.

Keep your focus to just one subject per page. Don’t think you should promote everything that you’re trying to sell on just one page. This can easily overwhelm your page visitors and cause them to turn away from your page. A page that only focuses on one thing is best.

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.

Try to frequently include different types of offers or sales on your website. Not only will sales optimize your search criteria, but it will keep visitors on your site longer, as most people are psychologically drawn to a deal. This can improve your overall profit and success during the course of the year.

Don’t forget to fill in the ‘About Me’ boxes of all of your social media and forum memberships. These locations are often overlooked, and yet they are the perfect location for a quick elevator pitch on your business. Be sure to include your web address and any social media user names you want to promote.

If you search for your page on a search engine and cannot find it, resubmitting it may be the best way for you to have your page returned to the search ranking. Resubmitting will not hurt your ranking even if your page is still valid, as search engines recognize that and simply ignore your request.

There are many tools you can use online to check keyword density. Keep in mind that search engines may change their own format and algorithms so keep your keyword checkers up-to-date and research which way the current search engine trend is going. You do not want to make the mistake of choosing keyword tools that are not current.

When titling your website files and setting their URLs, use hyphens rather than underscores to separate words. (e.g. “my-homepage” rather than “my_homepage”) Using hyphens lets search engines read separate keywords when they index your site. Underscored titles will appear to search engines as one long keyword – and that keyword is not likely to be a search term.

Use Google Maps and similar services to promote your website. When people look for a local business, your name is going to come up. Include a link to your website in the description, to allow visitors to learn more about your services. You should get visits from local people who are potential customers.

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.

Add your keywords to the anchor text of your included links. Links are another item that the search engines rank higher in importance than regular text. The more places of importance to the engine that you put your keyword, the higher they will value those words in determining where your site should be in the rankings.

When setting up your site, it is important to add text links on the multiple pages. When using image maps, links for images, or drop down menus, it is important to add text links because the spiders need them to have something to follow. This is important when it comes to the way you rank on the search engine results page.

Place your keywords or keyphrases between your Header Tags for search engine optimization. This placement of your keyphrases or keywords between H1, H2, or H3 will help the search engines place you higher. Also, be sure you put your keywords within the first couple of paragraphs on your page.

The easiest way to find out just how effective your attempts at Search Engine Optimization are, go to Google and type in the words you would expect people to use to find the type of information or product you are promoting. If your page doesn’t show up on the very first page of the results then you have work to do!

SEO is the best way to make sure your website gets to page one of those search results so that people will see your site and hopefully purchase your product or service. Following these tips will keep your site rising until it’s number one on the search engine results pages.