If you have ever tried to promote your business or product via the Internet, you know the importance of search engines in determining your success. Search engine friendly sites are a must if you wish to make your online presence known. The majority of people searching for products or information online do so via one of the major search engines. In order for someone to locate your business, it has to have a good spot in the rankings. Your website may be professionally designed but if customers cannot locate it, it really does you little good. Past studies have shown that people searching for information online rarely look past the third page of results. This is why search engine optimization is so important.

One important tip to remember when designing search engine friendly sites is that you need to concentrate on each individual page. Companies such as Google will not rate your website as a whole, but instead will rank each individual page. This is valuable information to remember when writing your content. Although there is no set limit for the number of words per page, most SEO experts recommend that you include at least four-hundred words per page in order to receive good search engine recognition. Any amount written beyond this is generally fine but you want to make sure you have at least enough text to fill a good portion of the page. Websites that contain little content and a great deal of advertising are generally frowned upon.

Another relevant factor of search engine friendly sites is the content itself. Although obtaining a good ranking is important, your content should be well written and make sense to the visitors who will read it. Don’t concentrate solely on stuffing the right mix of keywords into your article. It is just as important that your content sounds natural and flows easily. A good trick for writing online content is to break the article up into smaller paragraphs. This is much easier for online readers to absorb. Also, be sure to include proper headings so visitors can easily locate whatever information they are looking for. The use of bullets will make lists stand out and catch the reader’s eye. Writing content for online purposes is much different than writing a novel or newspaper article. Try to break the content down into small bits for easier reading.

Incoming, outgoing, and reciprocal links can all help in achieving search engine friendly sites. Although content is very important, you will also receive credit for the number of links to your site. A high number of incoming links is extremely helpful to your rating. A good way to improve your link numbers is through the use of reciprocal linking. First you will need to include links from your site to other websites that are either related to or in some way compliment your business. Be sure to choose sites that are of high quality and well written. After including a link to your chosen site, you then send an email or letter to the site owner asking them if they would consider including a link in return back to your site. This technique known as reciprocal linking provides advertising for both websites and improves the link rating of each site too. When trying to increase the number of links to your website, you should keep in mind that this will take a great deal of time and effort. You can not expect to get dozens of new links from quality websites within a week’s time. Most business owners are very selective in which sites they choose to link to. Give them plenty of time to consider your website before making a decision.

Lastly, when designing search engine friendly sites there are certain practices you definitely will want to avoid. While keywords are important, you do not want to include them too often. Be sure to check your keyword density to make sure it is within an acceptable range. The search engines will also penalize your site if you include hidden text in an attempt to boost your ratings. When choosing a title and description for each page, make sure it is actually relevant to the content on your site. For example, if you have a website that sells weight loss products, it is considered inappropriate to include meta keywords related to gambling. Make sure you honestly describe your business and the products you offer. By doing so you will not mislead customers looking for information unrelated to what your site offers. Honestly is the best policy when promoting your website. Not only will it make your business look more professional but it can also help to gain a customer’s trust.