As more and more competitors and rivals enter into the world of online commerce, it becomes increasingly difficult to win the attention of prospective customers. If your business is to succeed online, you must first master the art of search engine optimization, or SEO. Use these tips and tricks to create a competitive edge online.

When optimizing your site for Google, do not use “semi spam” copy. Recent Google algorithm changes penalize not only obvious spam (e.g. “Get X@naX from 0verseas”), but also low quality content that has no useful purpose other than to drive visitors to a site. Articles spun by computers are a good example of this kind of content.

Write website content that human beings can understand and enjoy. Keyword injected nonsense just isn’t going to work. Search engines are programmed to differentiate between actual sentences and strings of words. They know a paragraph shouldn’t have the same sentence repeated over and over. If you fill your site with valuable content then the SERPS will reward you.

Submit your site to major search engines. This may seem like it is an obvious step, but many site owners believe that a search engine will link to you if someone searches a certain keyword. While this may be true, you may not be the first on the list, or even on the first page. Optimize this strategy by paying a small fee to the search engine, and get your site on top of the results.

Know how to use and make the most of social media. Most of them are free to use, such as Twitter, Facebook or even the online review sites. Some sites draw in people with specific interests. You should become active on least a few that your business relates to, and use them as a platform to introduce people to your products.

One wonderful way to drive mare attention to your marketing site is to add a resource section to your site. By doing this, you can get more visibility on search engines. This inevitably will get you more traffic. Additionally, this resource section will most likely attract more potential customers.

Use categories to separate your site as it grows. This not only helps search engines direct people to the exact part of your site they are looking for, but it also helps established readers find their favorite content quickly and efficiently. Categorize your site with keywords to watch your site hits grow.

Never use “hidden” links that visitors cannot see. These links are a holdover from the very early days of search engine optimization, when search engine crawlers would blindly follow the links and improve a website’s ranking accordingly. Today search engines are smart enough to avoid hidden links, and some will even penalize you if they find them on your website.

Boost your website’s SEO by visiting “.edu” domains and creating backlinks on their blogs and forums. Also search for .edu sites in need of sponsorship. Search engines favor .edu websites and sites with numerous backlinks. Make sure that the comments you leave on these websites are relevant and not a hard sell for your company or product.

An important rule to remember with regards to search engine optimization, is to select a keyword phrase that is ONLY two or three words long. Studies have shown that nearly 60% of keyword phrases contain two are three words so this will allow you to achieve the highest possible results.

To choose the most effective keywords for your site, take advantage of the search engine’s suggested topics. For example, if your site was about dogs, you could enter the word “dogs” into the search bar. Phrases that are suggested, such as “Dogs 101” or “dogs that don’t shed” are phrases searched for often, and will make excellent keywords for your site.

Make sure to research your keywords before placing them into your content. Try using websites like Google’s Keyword External Tool or Word Tracker to see what keywords are “hot” when it comes to your subject matter. By strategically using and placing keywords like this, you can raise your ranking in the search engine results.

Make your URL more search engine friendly by naming it with clear, easy to read words. Your URL should be easy to understand, and memorable to help drive traffic to your site, which will ultimately rank you higher with the search engines. You want your URL to be something that will be catchy enough to drive viewers to you.

If you want consumers to visit your site or search for your products and services, it is especially important that you are willing to follow through with SEO principles in your site’s coding and content. Follow the advice from this article and you will begin to see improvements in your site’s traffic and efficiency.

Get The Most From The Web With These Search Engine Optimization Tips was originally published on Spring