Friday 30 December 2011

SEO Training Course - What Is Involved?

If you're considering a SEO training course, it's important to understand how you will benefit from it. There are several different facets to search engine optimization. Those that take the time to learn each area have a better shot of becoming successful online. It's not as difficult as most people think. All you have to do is spend a little time learning more about it.

What is SEO?

SEO is an acronym for search engine optimization. It's a way for a business owner's website or blog to be found on the Internet. There is a variety of ways to use SEO strategies, which is why a lot of people are confused by it. However, the main goal is to rank higher in the search engines and make your business website more relevant on the Internet.

How do you become more relevant?

Unfortunately, we can't list all of the search engine optimization strategies here. There are too many to name, but you become more relevant by utilizing them properly. In 2011, we are all well aware of how SPAM works. Ten years ago, it was an easy way for people to make short-term money, but now it's pretty much obsolete.

Now you HAVE to use some sort of SEO strategy to truly make a difference. In order to become more relevant you have to learn about things like; article marketing, using proper SEO strategies in the background of your website, as well as several other areas. Without it, your website or blog will never get off the ground.

What do you learn in an SEO Training Course?

We understand this is new territory for most people, but it's not much different from going back to school. It doesn't matter if you want to take a SEO training course to help your business or start a new career, because this can help you in both areas. The teaching process is informative and will cover everything you need to know about search engine optimization.

While the strategies involved with SEO is important, you also need to understand how the search engines work. For instance, Google has these things called "spiders." These are used to index your site and figure out what it is about so they can put it in the appropriate place. Did you know spiders crawl from left to right on your website?

Okay, search engine spiders are basic information you will learn when taking a SEO training course. You will also learn how to cater to them, get indexed higher, and bring more traffic to your business. If you want to turn this into a career, you will learn how to perform SEO strategies for your clients.

Keeping it Simple

Obviously, we're trying to keep our information basic, but it's only because we don't want to overwhelm you. Learning search engine optimization can be fun, exciting, and challenging at the same time. You will see information about SERPs, various SEO statistics, why black-hat strategies (the bad SEO system) can be a nightmare for your website, how to leverage your power, and everything else involved.

We understand this is a big decision for you. Taking an SEO training course is a major commitment, but when you're finished, it will provide an endless amount of benefits.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6531104

Thursday 29 December 2011

SEO Training Levels and Options

Search engine optimization is a crucial marketing effort for the success of any website. Achieving higher rankings in the search engines translates to getting more traffic which is exactly what your online business is after. Hiring the services of an expert to optimize your website might prove a bit costly, and this could be the reason why you may consider undergoing some SEO training.

But SEO involves so many different techniques and requires at least a basic understanding of the criteria that search engines require to rank pages. And since SEO is always a work in progress, companies could benefit more from having an in-house trained SEO professional who could save them a lot of money.

What SEO training options do you have then? Given below are the paths you could pursue.

Basic Training

The quickest way to learn SEO would be checking out the vast recourses available online. This involves downloading a few free e-books, reading blogs by industry professionals, and gathering all the tips and tricks needed. You'll have to do this all on your own and you won't incur any costs. Basic training will cover the fundamentals of SEO: from Meta data, Meta tags, keywords, anchor text usage to link building methods. However, you may still not get all the techniques and latest secrets to keep up with the ever changing world of SEO.

Online SEO Training Programs

There are many online SEO courses that you might find worthy of your money. These training programs are offered by SEO gurus who understand the art and science of getting websites favorably ranked, who have prepared structured training programs along with course materials for study.

In deciding the best SEO professionals to train you, take a look at their credibility. What awards, certifications, recommendations and experience do they have? Ensure that they also have an up-to-date course that addresses the latest changes in search engine algorithms. Price may be a factor for you, but you wouldn't want to sacrifice on quality for a cheaper program.

In general, a proper SEO course should equip you with all the knowledge needed to successfully optimize a website, and should encompass the following lessons.

On-site optimization - meta tags, keywords, and proper internal linking structure

Accepted link-building techniques

Social Media Optimization

Social Bookmarking

SEO copywriting

Article writing and submission

Other complementary online marketing efforts

A good SEO course should meet your needs in terms of the level of understanding. For a beginner, it would first be necessary to understand what search engine optimization is, and its importance before being introduced to specific techniques. If you find a well-structured, updated and in-depth program online, then you should be able to learn and become an expert yourself.

Advanced Training

A great online SEO training program should put you up there with some of the best in the SEO field, but there's always more you can do. Search engine optimization should be ongoing process and not a quick, one-time effort that bears great results; and with search engine algorithms always changing, you may need to pay for and attend seminars held by some of the top industry professionals to teach you the latest tips and tricks as well as the secrets that make them tick.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6765883

SEO Training Courses And The Basics Of Search Engine Optimization

Almost every product in the SEO training courses niche claims to be able to get you to the number one ranking in the search engine results pages (serps) but most contain over hyped information that simply fails to live up to its promises. However there are five simple steps that anyone can take to improve search engine rankings for their own website.

Any SEO training course that guarantees you a top spot for any keyword of your choice is to be avoided, because you cannot simply just get top search engine placement for the most popular keyword's that everyone else is trying to get.

You need to "dig a little deeper" as it were, and find slightly less competitive keywords related to your chosen niche, so that you can target them and then get a top position in the serps.

Of course most of the many SEO products that are available on the internet today do not go into detail explaining this to you, as they fear putting you off your goals and failing to make sales and commissions from you in future.

This is why many search engine optimization tutorials are failing the very people they are designed to help - those people that wish to improve search engine rankings for their own websites.

At this stage the term "search engine optimization" probably requires a little more explanation. Some might think from this term that attempts to optimize a website for the search engines simply means creating poor content, that can be created quickly without much effort, and then using some sort of "clever coding magic" to get the search engines to show it high up in their results listings.

True "search engine optimization" as every decent SEO course would tell you is all about creating good quality, original content, and then finding those keywords (searched for phrases) that are a perfect match for that content and using such keywords in relation to that content.

Below there are some simple steps that can be taken to ensure good website search engine optimization, as any of the good SEO training courses would tell you (if you can find a good one, that is) but this is an area that is far too complex for just one article, but in essence the following should be used for anyone that wishes to improve search engine rankings for their own site:

1. Keyword Research

Search for and find keyword phrases that are closely related to your content, using any of the free keyword sources available online. Pay close attention to keyword phrases with similar meanings to the ones you are looking for, and also keep an eye on how often such keyword phrases are searched for and also how many other websites Google considers to be relevant to a search for those phrases, as all these other sites will be your competition should you choose to target that phrase.

2. Keyword Usage In Meta Tags

Once you have chosen your keyword phrases (longer phrases being easier to rank well for, as less competition, remember!) ensure you include them in all available Meta Tags on your webpage. They should be in Title tags, Description tags and Keyword tags.

3. Keyword Usage On Page

Ensure these keyword phrases are also within your Heading tags (H1 tags) and used throughout your page. Draw they eye to them by using Bold, Underline, Highlight and Italics as this also shows the search engines that you are focusing on these particular keyword phrases, helping to further prove your relevance in any given search for such keywords.

4. Keyword Named Images

Ensure that images on your webpage are also named with a variation of your keyword phrase, and that they include that keyword phrase as their Title, and as the text to be used when the Image cannot be shown in a visitor's browser for some reason. (This is known as ALT text, and there are several reasons why it might be shown, but for now that's not important - Just do it!)

5. Anchor Text Links
Finally, and most importantly when trying to improve search engine rankings, you should try to get as many incoming links as you can to each page using your chosen keyword phrase as the anchor text. (Anchor text simply means the actual words that are hyperlinked in any text link. So for example when you see "Click Here" as a link to another site, then the words click here become the anchor text for that link)

For more detailed information on how to use SEO for your own site, simply search online for a decent free copy of a guide that you are allowed to download without the need for sign up or opt in.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6296474