Why SEO is so important to your website

More likely than not, you’re using Google, Bing, or Yahoo to search for things on the web, so it makes perfect sense that your website must also be attractive to these search engines, too.

Seomoz offers some helpful information from Yahoo!, Google and Bing and their webmaster guidelines and search engine rankings. Yahoo! has these factors that websites must have for high ranking, which include:

• The number of other sites linking to it
• The content of the pages
• The updates made to indices
• The testing of new product versions
• The discovery of additional sites
• Changes to the search algorithm – and other factors

Bing engineers at Microsoft recommend the following to improve rankings:

• In the visible page text, include words users might choose as search query terms to find the information on your site.
• Limit all pages to a reasonable size. We recommend one topic per page. An HTML page with no pictures should be under 150 KB.
• Make sure that each page is accessible by at least one static text link.
• Don’t put the text that you want indexed inside images. For example, if you want your company name or address to be indexed, make sure it is not displayed inside a company logo.

 And finally, Google recommends the following:

• Make pages primarily for users, not for search engines. Don't deceive your users or present different content to search engines than you display to users, which is commonly referred to as cloaking.
• Make a site with a clear hierarchy and text links. Every page should be reachable from at least one static text link.
• Create a useful, information-rich site, and write pages that clearly and accurately describe your content. Make sure that your  elements and ALT attributes are descriptive and accurate. • Keep the links on a given page to a reasonable number (fewer than 100). elements and ALT attributes are descriptive and accurate. • Keep the links on a given page to a reasonable number (fewer than 100).