Disclaimer: This article is only intended to be used as an introduction to the world of Search Engine Optimization. Many of the advanced techniques are not discussed. Please don't take this article as the be all and end all of Search Engine Optimization, it is a vast subject that could never be completely covered and explained in one single article.

You may or may not have heard of search engine optimization (SEO for short). However, it has been a powerful marketing tool for businesses for many years, and its effectiveness will only increase the more Internet-savvy our country becomes. A properly implemented SEO campaign can result in new local clients and customers finding your business and buying from you. However, most people don't even have a basic understanding of SEO, and one of the big problems with the SEO Industry is there are many companies who don't really know what they are doing and will charge you money for SEO services without providing any real value. In the next article, we'll discuss what to look for if you're hiring an SEO company... but before we do that, let's take a look at the basic factors a search engine considers when ranking your website:

1. Inbound Links

It's no accident that this is the first item, as it's probably the most important factor when determining where your site will rank in the major search engines (Yahoo, MSN and Google). What is an inbound link? It's simply another website placing a html link on their website to your website (so their visitors can click on the link and visit your site). Generally, the more links to your website the better, however not all links are created equal. Some links will provide more benefit to your site than others, and some will even harm your website. Here's an example to help you understand how this works.

Picture a line that is used for rating link quality. The left end is the highest quality links, so on that side you'd see links from CNN.com, or CBC.com, or any other website that is very popular and everyone knows about. If you move all the way to the right end of the line, you see the lowest quality links that will actually harm your website's rankings. Here you will find links from pages that have 1000's of other links on them, and are full of content about discount Viagra and anything you've ever gotten a spam email about.

All of today's major search engines use the number and quality of links pointing to your website as a gauge of how other webmasters view your site. Essentially, it's a giant popularity contest. The more 'good' websites linking (i.e. voting) for your website, the more clout they will give your site when it comes to ranking for particular terms.

This begs the question: "How do I get the right kind of links to my website?" This is the proverbial "age old question". There are a number of techniques that can help build links to your website. The problem is, they are all extremely time consuming and require a certain degree of computer knowledge. This is one of the aspects of SEO that all but the most dedicated website owners will need to seek help for.

2. Title Tags

While links are probably the most important factor when it comes to ranking for competitive terms (search engine terms that a lot of other webmasters are trying to rank their pages for), you need to tell the search engines what term would be a good match for your page, otherwise you won't rank for any terms that will bring your site traffic that might turn into customers. One of the best ways you can tell a search engine what term to rank your page for is the Title tag. I know you're already asking, "What exactly IS a Title tag?" Well... look up at the very top of this browser window, up at the blue bar with the X to close the window on the right side. If you look at the left side, you will see "The Lifeline Blog" or "The Lifeline Blog » The Basics Of Search Engine Optimization: Part 1" depending on what part of our site you're on . That's the title tag I've defined for this page.

So how do these work? Let's use another example. Click here to open the Lifeline homepage in a new window. Notice the Title tag I've defined for that page is "Hamilton, Brantford and Simcoe Ontario Web Design - Lifeline Design". Click here to open up a Google search for the term "Simcoe Ontario Web Design", you'll notice our site is on the first page in part because of the Title tag. Google has looked at my site, and deemed it relevant to the term I've put in our Title tag, so we're showing up on page one. Let's look at another example, click here to open a Google search for "Brantford Ontario Web Design". For this term, the Lifeline site isn't on page one, but page two. "Brantford Ontario Web Design" is a more competitive term, so just choosing the right Title tag isn't always enough! We don't have enough good links (yet) for Google to place the site on page one.

Selecting The Right Title Tag

How do you select the right Title tag for your site? The most common mistake is using the exact same Title tag for the entire website. You should change the Title tag to be descriptive for each page. Also, what you want emphasized should be placed at the beginning. So if your business is Bob's Flowers that serves Simcoe Ontario, your Title tag should be something like "Flowers and Floral Arrangements in Simcoe Ontario - Bob's Flowers" Instead of "Bob's Flowers - Flowers and Floral Arrangements in Simcoe Ontario".

How do you change a Title tag?

A Title tag is a fairly easy code change on a website, and you shouldn't have to pay much at all to get someone to change the Title tags on your website to titles you've defined. Perhaps you have a CMS (content management system) that allows you to edit the content on your site without having any technical knowledge. The better CMS systems will allow you to edit the Title tags for each page yourself. If you're interested in a CMS system that can do this, contact us.

This concludes Part One of The Basics of Search Engine Optimization, I hope you've found it both interesting and informative. Please stay tuned for Part Two where we will cover the remaining basics of SEO like Meta Tags, On Page factors (the text on your page) and dynamic content.