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First and foremost, let us understand what exactly is a SEO or a Search Engine Optimizer. As the word suggests, it is a platform or service that optimizes the focus of the web page on a search engine so as to provide a higher ranking and therefore more referencing. In other words, the SEO service can provide an increased traffic on your particular website by placing it strategically in the upper ranking of any search engine. This then naturally results in an increase to the website’s online accessibility. Now for answering whether SEO is really useful, the foremost in your thought must be how these features will be considered as important aspects for your business. After all, that was the primary intent of placing your web page contents on a search engine.

Ever since the internet became the most in-demand tool for personal research as well as for B2B and B2C business, more and more business houses are discovering that this approach actually provides them more marketing depth and is instrumental in creating a whole new set of clients from far and wide. Today, one of the most useful things in creating websites is the Search Engine Optimization or SEO, as it helps in business ‘advertising’. We must be clear that there are almost a million hits per day on search engines, whether the search is of personal, professional or business related can be demarcated from the particular site or web pages that are checked. In the vast cyberspace, there are people who use the internet service to research on some things, or to get the best bargains for purchases, or even particular services within their neighborhood and budget. With so many people searching on the net for so many provisions, the traffic is bound to be heavy, and you want to ensure that your particular web page is on the fast free-way.

Ideally, you are looking at optimizing the numbers to visit your web page so that you can actually experience the business to improve. Ideally, if we are amongst the millions that do ‘search’ every day for something within a short span of time, you would want to be within the first 10 rankings on page one, or at least within the confines of pages 0-3. It is like opening the Pandora’s Box to tap the millions of potential clients from all over the world. This ideally is what the SEO is all about- ensuring that your web page creates the ripples and the overall impact.

I know you are thinking that if you have created a wonderful web page with all the information that anybody would want to seek, then that itself should suffice the purpose and here why should SEO be really useful? Well, we already gave some hint when we spoke of the awesome traffic on the internet searches as well as the very competitive vying to be within the visibility range otherwise your page can actually be lost somewhere in the back alleys. The SEO expertise ensures that your web page is visible mainly by sieving through the series of rankings that govern any search engine display.

Joomla and SEO

We should first be clear that SEO refers to Search Engine Optimization and that SEO is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from any search engines. In other words, the objective of the SEO is to give the web-page more visibility through ranking, and more depth through linking. SEO is also referred to as being SEF, or Search Engine Friendly. It should be noted that most of the search engines do have the facility to submit ‘feeds’ which can be utilized to enhance the search capabilities of the engine. This feature is particularly of use to those web pages that require to be updated on the contents at regular intervals or frequency, while there are pages that are static but could do with some ‘feed’ to boost their capability to enhance visibility. It is important at this juncture to know that each page is on a sitemap, which in turn is a collection of hyperlinks that clearly define the overall structure of a particular website. The sitemap facilitates not just the user, but also the search engine spider, to navigate and also index the website more efficiently. This in turn provides a very clear view of the contents of each website.

In defining the co-relation of Joomla and SEO, it is important to know that one of the major advantages of running the Joomla content management system is the fact that you can download and install a number of different sitemap components that will on configuration automatically display the contents of your web site in a site-map format to the visitors as well as the search engine spiders. It is heartening to note that in looking towards this as a ‘requirement’, Google has itself endorsed the need for the inclusion of a sitemap on the website and has accordingly created the option ‘Google Sitemaps’.

It is very imperative that prior to creating a sitemap, we ensure that the page titles, meta descriptions and the SEO clearly reflects the contents of your individual page. This will then assist the site visitors and search engine spiders to understand the contents of the web page, and be able to index as well as rank it accordingly.

Now, when writing the contents for the Joomla web-site, you must create it for the users and not the search engines. In other words, you will have to focus on creating the contents relevant to your web-site on a Joomla template site rather than focus on writing content for the Joomla templates itself. This is where most fail to create a demarcation. In Joomla, it is worthwhile making the targeted keywords in H1 and H2 for highlighting, which otherwise have no significance in SEO. Once you have defined your target audience, irrespective of the search engine being used, try and build up a list of sites with similar interests.

Lastly, if in Joomla you are not using sections and categories for the static page/s, then do create a generic section for these as a ‘website content’. In fact, create separate categories for each static page.

Youtube for SEO

Humans have a tendency to prefer audio visual input to simply text. That is because the brain prefers symbols and pictures to plain text. This is why YouTube has become such a popular and important thing for most people who want a presence on the net.

The fact is that YouTube videos often show up on Google search engine results and rank higher than most optimized sites. As an internet marketer, you cannot ignore what the implications of this are. If a YouTube video is properly optimized, it could give your business the boost it needs.

Here are some tips to use YouTube for your SEO

· Keep it short. No one is going to see a 30 minute video on web hosting. Besides you are not Brad Pitt. So keep it short and to the point.

· Short videos cut production costs, upload and download times.

· Prepare a script, rehearse it, tape it so that you know how it sounds. This will help you deliver your script crisply without stammering or mumbling.

· Film it in the highest quality format you can afford.

· Allow comments on the video. Interaction is good for business.

· Use the text boxes and annotations. But be sparing about it. Do not go overboard as this can distract attention from the video and even irritate the viewer.

· Search engine spiders do not comprehend videos so use the text fields with key words. SEO is all about key words. Your key words should appear in titles, description and tags of the video. Use long tailed key words, original titles and optimized tags.

· Try to make your content original. YouTube viewers are picky that way. The more original the content is, the better the chance of standing out.

· Use interaction as a method of creating interest in your videos. Comment on other videos, make friends. All this helps in virally marketing your video.

· Enable embedding but follow the link. You want the outside website to be relevant to your business.

· Increase your video views by email campaigns and showcasing your video on blogs and websites.

· Participate in social networking sites. This will help getting your on to YouTube’s home page.

· Use major video sites using software like Tube Mogul and Traffic Geyser to submit your video to all major video sharing sites. These softwares even offer top drawer analytics so that you can tweak your videos and optimize them.

· Use YouTube Insight to evaluate your video and learn from other videos. These statistics give you great insight and help improve your videos.

· Monetize your videos using adsense so that you can start earning from your videos immediately.

· Do not use programs that are unethical and help you create false accounts and backlinks for your videos. YouTube like Google will ban you permanently.

As I said earlier, audio visual media is more popular than plain text. Utilize it to SEO your website and your business.

Who needs SEO?

So what if there are ‘n’ numbers of websites on the internet. So what if all constantly vie to be at the top. So what if your own web pages are not optimized to be in contention. So what if they all get buried amongst the back references. Do you still want more reasons as to who needs SEO or Search Engine Optimization? We actually cannot blame you, because there are existing site owners out there who are lagging behind and not realizing that they too need SEO, so we shall attempt to open your eyes to the reality.

Studies of the net movements have clearly indicated that most search engine users rarely click past the first two or maximum three pages of any search results. In fact, many don’t even click past even the first page because they have found what they were seeking in their search. I can almost feel you nodding on that from your personal experience. But what this clearly spells is that the site hit numbers are quite irrelevant if that does not figure in the first three pages of any search. For all practical purpose, it may as well be invisible. And just because you are not doing SEO for your website, rest assured that someone else is but only to harness and divert the web traffic to their own site. Now that should be sufficient reason to understand why or who needs SEO.

It is important that we know there are two aspects to the SEO. There is the On-Page SEO which in reality optimizes individual pages of search engines in conjunction with carefully selected keyword or key phrases. A good design or the properly chosen keywords do actually initiate the search engine spiders to find your site. It is also important to know that SEO is done on a page by page basis, and not for the entire site. So the optimization of keywords will need to be checked on each page.

Now that we know something about the On-Page SEO, let us check out how the Off-Page SEO complements the former for optimizing the overall SEO. After all, you need the SEO, and you should know what the SEO can provide. Presuming that your site has made it into the first two pages, we now need to get a better ranking for the search results. The Off-Page SEO does precisely that by acquiring links to your site. Understand that each link that points towards your site is an added vote of confidence that tells the search spider where to head. So with more links on your site, the SEO increases your prospects at the rankings. See? It’s you who need SEO.

Many people believe that just the act of building a website ensures the network success. It’s very competitive out there, and only if you understand that you need SEO, will you be able to get some attention. And if you adopt both aspects of the SEO, you are definitely headed towards the area of maximum exposure and good ranking.

Why should I learn SEO?

Let us start with the basics, before we presume the topic is for Sore Eyes Only. Let us understand that SEO is short for Search Engine Optimization, and it delves on everything pertaining to internet marketing right from what a cookie is to what the future holds for the internet-television collaboration. In reality, it does not even matter whether you are a beginner in the world of internet marketing or a seasoned online campaigner. If you do any work on the net, be it personal or in professional capacity, the one tool you must learn is the SEO.

We agree that when you commence with your attempt at learning the finer nuances of SEO, the first instinct will be to switch off, mentally. Your mind will scream about this being very technical and therefore confusing, so best is to leave it to the experts. Well hello, because that ‘expert’ could be you. Yes, it may look hard to do but then, so was riding a bike or tying shoe-laces. After all, we all have to start someplace, and the start is what makes it look difficult. Let us also be clear that with the holistic and strategic approach of the SEO, it would be necessary for you to clearly outline your goals before you delve deep into why you should learn SEO.

To help you understand the need or to answer your question why you need to learn SEO, let us check out some handy pointers.

* If you are already using the internet, you will discover that SEO is the handy tool to help with your search. It will make you wonder how you managed without it.

* With the working knowledge of SEO, you can delve deeper into not just creating internet marketing web pages, but also for blog posts, article marketing, social book-marking, etc.

* Imagine the reassuring thought that once you have learnt the basics of SEO, you will never need to pay an ‘expert’ to do those work for you.

* Even if you have to hire someone to do some technical search, the basic knowledge will let you speak the same language and be precise in placing your need to your benefit.

* When you do even part of the SEO work, and arrange an expert to do the rest, you can learn more by observing and indexing the contents for future searches. You learn, save time, save money, and store references.

* The net is a competitive world, so if you do not learn the SEO, someone who does know it will always be one step ahead of you. And we certainly don’t want you to lose those rankings.

* By learning the SEO, you can actually keep a virtual ‘eye’ on the network and be able to judge who, why, or how has gone into the top slot. This can and will help you in replicating the ideas.

* Learning SEO today will benefit you in the future, help you get faster results, get indexed by the search engines, and above all, get noticed.

Good SEO skills will, eventually, drive more traffic to your website and other webpages, generating more leads and more sales, helping you grow your income by working online.

Learning SEO is easy, the internet is full with free information about SEO, and you just need to look for it. Go to forums and ask questions, you will find many people happy to teach you how SEO works and how to use it, your job is to collect all this information and learn search engine optimization.

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