SEO or search engine optimization is something that every web owner and creator should be aware of. Even if a website owner hires an expert to carry out the online marketing, understanding the very basics and how it really can improve a websites performance and popularity is important.

Sometimes search engines can ban a domain name for what is called spamming. This is when it contains far too many keywords (keyword stuffing) or key phrases, and when a black hat type of SEO has been carried out. Key words are highly important from a search engine point of view. Optimizing a website means starting at the beginning, and including key-words relevant to the business adds value and brings to the website the visitors it is targeting. In basic terms, website content should be built around those important key words, which can be expanded upon over time.

SEO is valuable, and means a way of making a site appear at a higher ranking in search engines such as Google, Yahoo, AOL etc. Using this important type of online marketing can reap great benefits. It takes time to learn and time to complete, and is a constant job to keep a website performing well above competitors.

Despite this, it can never be a complete guarantee that the site will appear above competitors. Not only is the on-site content and its relevance taken into consideration, but also dependent on quality links into that website (back links or inbound links) that are also active and receiving clicks (click through rate), the number of hits it already receives (current popularity) and how regularly the site is updated.

Basic optimization currently states that key-words or key-phrases should appear in the last sentence and the first sentence of the text on a page. In and ideal world, it needs to appear in titles, headings, the domain name or URL, meta tags and in links to other pages. But there should be careful consideration to ensure that they do not appear too much (keyword density is vital and different experts will advise on the percentage to aim at.

Alternative things that are also very important is that pages containing lots of text or very little, will mean a search engine will struggle to crawl that page. In addition to this, web pages built using or containing flash, java-script or frames will make it hard for a search engine too.

Some well ranking sites actually use plenty of off site marketing which is fairly important in building back links to the website from relevant sites. A long term project but one which can really help. A good way of doing this is adding domain names and descriptions including keywords to directories and search engines that are relevant to the business (e. G. A regional directory is ideal for a local corner store to be added to).

All of these issues should be covered at the very minimum. Not only does SEO play a significant part in keeping a website up to date and relevant in the eyes of a search engine, but it plays a large part in ensuring the site and its content is useful to its human visitors too.

Mike Gates is an online marketer and recommends HostGator for hosting. HostGator is the cheapest web host. Use hostgator coupon to get discount at the time of sign up.