Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is the process of proving to the various search engines that a particular page on your site is relevant for a particular keyword or set of keywords that a user of the search engine might type in to find your page. While you may know that your page on French Horns is highly relevant, there are 100,000 other sites selling, describing the history of, or tutoring people in the use of French Horns. To get your site to the first few pages for this search term requires that you follow the rules set by the search engines BETTER than these 100,000 other sites.
Use the term in your page. The search engines won’t know your page is about French Horns unless you use the term a few times. Don’t go overboard by overusing the term however, because this will defeat the main purpose of the page which is to sell French Horns. There is a fine art to writing product descriptions that are both relevant to the search engines for a particular keyword or keyphrase and are also readable and good sales copy for the customer. Always write for the customer first. E-commerce websites are notorious for being poorly written.
Use the keyword or phrase in the page title. This is the title that shows up at the top of the web browser. Search engines place a lot of value for keywords that are in both the title and the text of a page.
Easy site navigation is important. Dynamic webpages that pull content together depending on search variables are not as friendly for search engines as static pages. Static pages are just like they sound, webpages that exist in the same format all the time. This is especially critical for e-commerce sites because many software packages store product descriptions, pictures, and sales policies in databases and only assemble the final product page when demanded by the consumer. A few website software solutions like CityMax create static e-commerce pages that search engines can index and retrieve.
Get sites to link to you. Links from other sites are like votes for your site. This is difficult with e-commerce sites, however, because there is little incentive for another site to link to you without being paid. There is, of course, the option to pay for links but the search engines very likely know the difference between a paid link which is not really a vote, and a natural link where a webmaster chooses to link to you because he thinks you have a great site. The DMOZ directory is a human edited directory that is selective in who they link to and the search engines give a lot of deference to sites that can get listed there.
Add your site to paid directories. There is some disagreement how much value there is in paying directories to list your site. The traffic is usually not significant and the search engines know that these are paid links. Some experts feel that the Yahoo directory, even at $300, is worthwhile. Personally, I think that the MSN search engine gives a lot of deference to websites listed in the Microsoft Small Business Directory. I get a lot of free search traffic from MSN and I have a strong suspicion that it is due to my $49 annual listing in their directory.
Write expert articles. Even though your site is dedicated to selling goods, the time you spend writing “altruistic” articles such as how-to articles or buying guides will create several benefits. First, the search engines will have more reason to serve your site up for relevant keywords and phrases. Second, a well written and organized help section will give other webmasters a reason to link into your site. Finally, you can shop these articles around to magazines and article distributors like EzineArticles and SearchWarp who will allow other webmasters to use your content so long as they keep the links to your site intact. Voila, lots of sites linking to you and a rise in the overall relevance of your site in the eyes of the search engines. The key is to resist the temptation to create self-serving articles and instead write truly helpful articles.
Bide your time. While you know your site is the absolute most relevant site for French Horns, the search engines are swamped with all the competing sites trying these same techniques for relevance. Some search engines, notably Google, compensate older webpages with more relevance and there is nothing you can do after you have implemented the above except wait. As a rule of thumb Google sandboxes new sites for between 6 and 12 months.
One thing to be careful of is using black hat methods to boost your ranking. Using artificial link farms to create hundreds of inbound links or adding “invisible” white text full of keywords on webpages will get you penalized by the search engines.
I would personally rather pay a freelance writer to create a series of how-to articles for my e-commerce site at $200 per article than to pay an SEO company to “optimize” my site. The benefits are longer lasting and I don’t run the risk of the SEO company using shortcuts that get a temporary boost in ranking while creating the potential of getting penalized by search engines for black hat methods.