Foolish Assumptions / Search Engine Optimization for Dummies

Get search engines and directories to include your site in their indexes

and lists.

Get search engines to display your site when people search locally.

Encourage other Web sites to link to yours.

Keep track of how well your site is doing.

Use pay-per-click advertising and shopping directories.

And plenty more!

Foolish Assumptions

I don’t want to assume anything, but I have to believe that if you’re reading

this book, you already know a few things about the Internet and search

engines. Things such as

You have access to a computer that has access to the Internet.

You know how to use a Web browser to get around the Internet.

You know how to carry out searches at the Web’s major search engines,

such as Google and Yahoo!

Of course, for a book like this, I have to assume a little more. This is a book

about how to get your Web site to rank well in the search engines. I have to

assume that you know how to create and work with a site, or at least know

someone who can create and work with a site. In particular, you (or the other

person) know how to

Set up a Web site.

Create Web pages.

Load those pages onto your Web server.

Work with HTML (HyperText Markup Language), the coding used to

create Web pages. In other words, you’re not just using a program such

as Microsoft FrontPage — you, or your geek, understand a little about

HTML and feel comfortable enough with it to insert or change HTML tags.

I don’t go into a lot of complicated code in this book; this isn’t a primer on

HTML. But in order to do search-engine work, you or someone on your team

needs to know what a TITLE tag is, for instance, and how to insert it into a

page; how to recognize JavaScript (though not how to create or modify it);

how to open a Web page in a text editor and modify it; and so on. You have to

Search Engine Optimization For Dummies, 2nd Edition