Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a term that is used to encompass your efforts to become "search engine friendly" and ultimately to gain higher ranking in the search engines. It takes time, research and patience. Unless you have a huge budget to pay for pay-per-click campaigns or banner advertising, then you must rely on what is termed "organic search results".

Organic results, simply put, is the search engine optimization techniques that you do not pay for. Organic results rely on website factors both on-the-page and off-the-page; keywords, headings, links, bold terms and also the number of quality links coming into your website. Links coming in influence your page rank and help the search engines decide if your site is more relevant to the keyword a user is putting into the search engine.

Ideally, if your site sells shoes, and your potential visitor types in "shoes" in a major search engine your site should be sprinkled with the keyword "shoes" and related keywords - shoe size, kid shoes, women's shoes, etc. Also many of your headings should contain your keyword letting the search engine know that this is an important term on your page. Your "alt" tags on your images should contain the keyword, your content should have it - all within a balanced harmony that lets the search engine know that your site is indeed about shoes and is worthy of showing up on that sought after first page of results. You must also know enough not to "spam" your keyword so that the search engines won't penalize you.

Search Engine Optimization doesn't just stop with what you do on your site. The links going to your site should be of high quality and relevant, not just links for links sake. Also to gain good search engine optimization for better ranking you must create sitemaps, robot.txt files and continually monitor your results to maintain the ranking you worked hard to obtain.

This article by no means is a complete guide to search engine optimization, there's much more to it that I have learned through many avenues:

• Experience
• Workshops
• Research of Articles, Ezines and Newsletters
• Books
• Online WebCEO course

I felt that the best way for me to learn the real ins and outs of search engine optimization is to first use the tools on my own site and see what happens. I'll be chronicling my website's progress as I go. Search Engine Optimization - Step 1 has finally been started. Read more about my progress on my SEO blog (coming soon).

What does the Internet Marketing Professional Certification Mean?

Web CEO confirms that the holder of the certificate is competent to provide
expertise, consulting, and services in the following fields of Internet Marketing:

• Search Engine Optimization and Marketing
• Web Analytics
• Email Marketing

the "Internet Marketing Professional" course covers the following skills:

• Internet niche research, advanced keyword competitiveness analysis and keyword strategy;
• On-page and off-page search engine optimization for enhanced Web visibility;
• Advanced and site-specific optimization techniques;
• Website structural optimization;
• Rank monitoring and ranking trends analysis;
• Setting up link partnerships, improving link popularity and external site theme;
• Site quality assessment and site quality management;
• Web Analytics, visitors' behavior analysis;
• Website conversion and ROI analysis and improvement;
• Setting up, running and analyzing e-mail marketing campaigns;