What we know about SEO in 2009

Dear Bloggers,

This post comes just after we restored the blog functionality but not the whole blog as all the previous articles are missing. For those who are not aware of why we have an empty blog, well due to some reason an upgrade failure killed our blog and the database got corrupt and here we are with an empty blog. Our programmers and webmasters are working to restore the functionality of the blog to what it was before. So we took this opportunity to give our blog a fresh look. We are working on a custom theme for the blog keeping the present theme as a base.

In this article we will discuss what we know about SEO in whole with half of 2009 already behind us. We all know that SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization but do we all know that it is not just a simple process of integrating meta tags and key phrases to a website but a complex and lengthy process of optimizing so that search engines are able to find the website. As the process goes along, a website increases its rankings and popularity in search engines and the higher these parameters the more likelihood that the right person will visit your website. The procedure includes integration of key phrases, meta tags, directory submission, article submission etc so that a website can attain higher rankings in search engines and get something that Google defines as Page rank. The higher the page rank the higher the ranking in search engines and higher the traffic. The process also includes on page and off page optimization. On page optimization includes the integration of vital keywords, titles and meta tags that are integrated onto the HTML code of the website whereas off page optimization includes submission of the website URL to online directories, article submission, social media networking, bookmarking etc.

So we know all this, but what is new in SEO in the year 2009. As per SEOMoz there are 14 practices that should be given importance to while considering SEO. Here is what they recommend:

Title Tag Format
The Usefulness of H1 Tags
The Usefulness of Nofollow
The Usefulness of the Canonical Tag
The Use of Alt text with Images
The Use of the Meta Keywords tag
The Use of Parameter Driven URLs
The Usefulness of Footer Links
The Use of Javascript and Flash on Websites
Blocking pages from Search Engines
Google Search Wiki’s Affect on Rankings
The Affect of Negative Links from “Bad Link Neighborhoods”
The Importance of Traffic on Rankings

The complete article can be found here

One more thing that really made us happy was the fact that from the starting of 2009 Google has started indexing Flash based websites as well. Some interesting facts about this can be found here.

After searching the internet and going through various articles I did come to a conclusion that SEO is evolving and although everything might sound the same but SEO is being enhanced and is becoming more complex in its nature. Hence if you are looking to get a website developed always keep SEO in mind even if you are not going to optimize your website. A good website will always be SEO ready once completed (even if you have to spend an extra $200 ) as it will be made with SEO friendly practices so finding the right web design/development company and setting the budgets are an essential.Make a SEO strategy with your develpment company, ask a lot of questions so that they can explain what they plan to do for your website and define your targets so that you get what exactly you are looking for.

Eventually what is the use of a website if it cannot be found…..keep this is in mind when going in for website development. Your website is your online business card and you need to bring it to your potential clients by making sure that it is found by the right people when they look for what you can provide them.

Please feel free to post your comments and let us know what you think…

happy reading

Admin