Virtually all internet users make use of search engines. Few users seem to understand much about seach engines and some of their specialized functions.

Websites can simply register with the major search engines and hope for the best. However, marketers should understand a bit about how the most popular search engines work in order to help ensure that their sites achieve the highest levels of traffic.

There are two key points:

1. The major search engines do not all work the same way and therefore you must have detailed information about the search techniques of each in order to optimize result.
2. There are three primary ways search engines locate a site. None of them alone is sufficient; they are at least the basic elements and they must all be used aggressively in order to achieve the best results.
• Keywords. These are indexing terms that are used by the search engine database to identify content, Marketers should identify all the words potential visitors might use in searching for a topic – and all the likely misspellings of these words! These keywords should appear with as much frequency as possible on the home page and other entry pages to major portions of the website. Copywriter must write compelling copy that includes as many keywords as possible.
  
  
• Title tags. Each page has a title. Having a good, recognizable one is important. Search engine check every word in the title, so each one should be relevant to searches for site content.
  
  
• Meta tags. Except for the title tag, meta tags do not affect how the site is displayed. They are specifically used to provide data to the search engines. Meta tags are used by search engines in constructing their own indices or internal directories, so the quality of the tags is important. The description part of the meta tag is the portion (as short as a phrase, as long as a paragraph, depending on the search engine) that search engines pull out and display to the potential visitor as part of the search results.

Obviously, the actual execution of the tagging is the work of the site programmers. However, the marketer must know enough to ensure that issues that affect recognition by search engines are dealt with properly.