Search engine optimization sounds very intimidating to users new to online marketing or web design and maintenance. However, with a bit of education and research, search engine optimization can be done efficiently and effectively by anyone. Read these suggestions for a few ways to make your site stand out more in search results and improve your site traffic.

When using SEO on your site, don’t forget about organizing your files in the directory. The more layers you have in your file directory, the less weight the search engine spiders will place on those pages. Organizing your files to be closer to the root directory will help to boost your rankings.

When it comes to search engine optimization, good old reciprocal links still have a small but significant role to play. When two websites swap links, the process benefits the standing of both sites on the search engine results pages. Any link pointing to a page helps it in the SEO process, and trading a link is a reasonable way to get another one.

If you want to get the best, most specific result possible, using a search engine, then use quotation marks. For example, if you want to know Andy Pettite’s statistics in the final year of his career, type: “Andy Pettite” + “final year statistics.” This ensures that the engine doesn’t pull up unnecessary results, like his statistics from the other years of his career.

Search engine optimize any videos on your website by including keywords in video titles, tags and descriptions. The world’s second largest search engine is YouTube and for some keywords Google indexes YouTube videos on the first page of search results. Therefore, it makes sense to use SEO techniques on all videos on your website.

Diversify when getting traffic. Seek traffic through a number of methods so that you aren’t relying exclusively on search engines to get people to your site. This way, you ‘don’t put all your eggs in one basket,’ and won’t be bothered by a momentary slip in search engine rankings.

To optimize your search engine results it is important to make your URL easily identifiable. Include words that are relevant to the site as opposed to numbers and symbols. People will recognize those keywords in the URL, and are more likely to click on your link if they think it will bring them to a relevant page.

Spelling and grammar really do count, especially if your product is information. Have someone proof-read your entire site to avoid embarrassing errors. Not only do mistakes make your work look less professional, but they can result in unintended meanings and confusion over exactly what you are selling and what the terms and guarantees are.

People love to browse through a clearance section for bargains. You could include overstocked items or products nearing the end of their buying season. A dollar section for low priced merchandise can generate a lot of sales, especially if your website offers pop up suggestions for related items from your store. The customers will feel like they are getting a great deal and you will get more sales.

Part of a wide-reaching search engine optimization strategy is to use the same keywords in your advertisements that you do on your site. Not only does this keep your efforts focused, it provides you with valuable feedback. The volume of traffic you get from different ads will tell you which keywords are most enticing to potential visitors.

For search engine optimization, it is recommended that you use a dash in your web site URLs, instead of the underscore. The reason for this is that Google is particular in the results it returns. You will have more varied results when using the dash over the underscore and will, in turn, get more traffic to your site.

In Search Engine Optimization you can use title tags to your advantage by choosing different key words for each page. Don’t simply repeat the name of your business over and over on each page. Put the city and other key words people might use to narrow down their searches.

The first rule of Search Engine Optimization is acknowledging that everything is not equal in search engine returns! Legitimate education sites, sites with an “.edu” extension receive higher ranking in search engine returns that do “.com” or “.org” sites. This is because these sites exist, in theory at least, solely for the purpose of providing relevant and objective information.

When supplying information in your copy, include phrases like “How do I…” or “Where can I find…” in your keywords. People love to write questions into search engines, and you want to supply the answer. You can even use the question as the title of your post, which will rank it high for those keywords.

No one will stick around on your website if it’s slow. Optimizing the HTML is important, but having a fast web server is even more important. You should also upgrade and optimize your server software to ensure it’s hack-proof and up-to-date, meaning you have the fastest available version running your site.

If you’re going to post a video to YouTube, make sure that your website’s URL shows up at one of the points that are used to create the thumbnail for the video. Those points are approximately one quarter, one half, and three quarters of the way through the video, so have it appear at least once during those times.

The most important aspect of Search Engine Optimization is working diligently to insure that they information that you have on your web site is as high of quality as possible. Yes, you can use various tricks of the trade to improve your site’s returns but high quality content is the best approach.

As discussed earlier, search engine optimization does not have to be scary or intimidating regardless of how little experience you have with building or maintaining web sites. Follow the tips in this article to find ways to optimize your search engine results easily and effectively. You can improve your site’s ranking in search results with just a little effort and education.