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.

Search engine optimization is perhaps one of the greatest marketing tools to come about online, but without proper article submissions it won’t work out to your liking. That is why it’s imperative to search and find the best article directories to submit your hard earned work and watch the numbers start to add up.

For search engine optimization, the first thing you should do is register with Google and other search engines (such as Yahoo! and Bing). You can visit a special site, fill out a very short form with your website address and you’ll likely be “crawled,” in other words added, by that search engine faster.

One of the undisputed best ways to reach the top of the search engine results page is by having great content. People will naturally want to return to your site if you consistently offer interesting or entertaining information. If you struggle to come up with great content, it may be beneficial to hire a professional writer.

SEO is not a one-time thing, so you always need to work maintenance on your blog or website. Check constantly for broken links, images that won’t load, and videos that have been removed from the host source and other broken paths on your pages. Search engines penalize sites that display broken links, so stay diligent here.

You can do it alone if you learn how SEO works. There are plenty of resources available online to help you learn. There are several websites that can be helpful, as well as really excellent books on the topic.

One important tip that you should remember is that you should never republish an article at different links on your site. Google ranks pages in its SERP based on quality and considers different links to articles with similar content as a low quality link. Instead, use references to one single link.

Older blogs and websites will automatically gain higher places on a search engine’s ranking list. The older the blog or site, the higher it will be. Search engines take age into consideration because the older a site is, the more likely it is to have an already established customer set.

Do not make your site entirely Flash-based. Not only will some people not buy due to device incompatibility, others simply don’t like Flash and will click away from your site quickly. Do, however, use Flash in product or service demonstrations, as they can convert customers. But, have a text description for those who can’t or won’t use Flash.

If you bid for keywords on a pay-per-click search engine with an eye towards increasing your page rank, stay away from licensed trademarks and copyrighted product names. These can be popular search terms, but their owners will not appreciate you taking advantage of them. Only use such terms if you have an arrangement with the owners – and double-check their assent to this particular usage.

It is important to write an engaging meta description tag for each page you create in order to achieve proper search engine optimization. Many search engines use it as a blurb to display under the a page’s title and a descriptive tag will encourage viewers to visit your page, increasing traffic.

Keep your website current with new material. Search engines favor websites that are constantly updating and producing new content for their viewers. Make it a point to publish something new on your website at least three times per week, but try to do it more than that if you can.

One key SEO tip is to use BOLD and STRONG HTML tags to emphasize specific keywords that you want to stand out to both your human reader and search engines. Use both wisely when you feel they are needed. Keywords that are emphasized with BOLD or STRONG tags carry more weight with search engines.

Among the best things you can do to improve your website and increase your search engine optimization is to add a blog. This will give your company more (often free) publicity. Additionally, it will help you to make personal connections that could lead to more business. By applying a few good SEO tips to your company’s blog, you will see your company websites search engine ratings rise quickly.

Don’t fall into the SEO trap of believing that links can outweigh good content. Building a site that will appear at the top of the search engine rankings isn’t about beating the algorithms, it’s about providing good content. A single link from a high-ranking site will not help you outrank other sites that have relevant, recently-updated content about your keyword.

Yahoo local listings have star ratings attached so try to get yourself listed by them. It is absolutely free and that is the type of exposure that your business will need. You should ask prior customers to go to your listing and rate you so that your listing will stand out from the rest of them.

If you are unable to avoid the use of JavaScript image maps, links, or menus, you should take care to also place text links on the page. This allows web crawlers and other search engine spiders to single out the text links and more efficiently process them to assign site relevancy.

Try and get links that point to your pages from high-quality websites. The search engines value quality over quantity, and you can usually get a lot more link juice from a reputable website with a very high page rank than you can from a large number of lowly ranked sites.

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.