BUSINESS, MARKETING, and MONEY

If you are a webmaster you've probably been hearing about SEO (search engine optimization) for quite some time now, and chances are that you are aware of the positive benefits of developing web content using proper SEO techniques. But what you might not know is that it is now more important than ever to integrate SEO into your own web design. And if you're not already doing this then you'll want to start immediately, as you are already behind a few paces.

The object of SEO is obviously to gain more traffic and exposure, and this is done in many ways, but it should be considered at the development stage for the website. Web content can be tweaked in certain ways that the search engines like, and ultimately that will help achieve your goal. The experts use a few techniques that are helpful to know about.

With the fierce competition now on the web, SEO has also gotten much more sophisticated. In the past, all you had to do was to figure out some keywords you wanted to use and put them into the content on your home page. Then you would add some meta tags to your source and that was it, as you sat back and watched your sitemeter rack up higher and higher traffic counts. Now it is not quite so easy, and you must be more aggressive if you want to achieve success.

Search engines pay close attention to links on websites, and strong link building can be one of the most valuable tools you can employ while working for that top ranking. When the search engines analyze and rank the other sites where your link lives, your ranking will likely go up if the sites are similar in subject to yours. However, if you have placed a bunch of random links out there on sites that don't pertain to your subject, the search engine will pick up on that, and you'll likely suffer in the rankings.

The other benefit that link building provides is website exposure - and after all, isnt that the purpose of SEO in the first place? By having your link placed on other sites, you are more likely to be noticed and visited by quality internet traffic. And that's the whole point.