Your web site marketing strategy should always include some basic web design principles to increase your chances of passive traffic. Search engine optimization (or SEO) is one of the best techniques to ensure that your website marketing strategy will reach the largest potential audience on the worldwide web. How search engines calculate the ranking of any site is actually a very complex algorithm which is kept a closely guarded secret, but some simple web design principles can help you get higher rankings from the popular search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN. For example, many search engines calculate the density of certain keywords or key phrases appearing on your site. If you do your homework well, you can find keyword research software and tools to help you find the most profitable key words and key phrases to put on your site. Your product promotion language should include these key phrases throughout the site. Informative articles also help immensely in increasing keyword density.
Another important factor in search engine optimization is the number of inbound links other sites bring to your site. One of the best ways to increase your chances of inbound links is to include a blog on your site as well as on popular blog sites such as Blogger and Wordpress. Blogs (just a popular name for a comment diary or “weblog”) will give you a double advantage by increasing your inbound links and also keeping your content fresh. When visitors post comments to your blog, the search engine spiders will return to find out what is new and different. Every time there is refreshed content, your web site will ranked higher in the search engines. Also, check out link sharing sites to find other businesses who would like to swap services by posting your link on their site if you do the same.