SEO is not rocket science; it’s much more difficult than rocket science. To become a ninja-level SEO master takes years of practice for most people, and like a ninja if you don’t practice, one quickly loses one’s skills. The reason for this is that the search algorithms shift constantly, and as they are well guarded secrets, you never know what the search engineers are up to. No, it’s not rocket science; It’s more like reverse engineering a UFO that you can only see off in the distance and whose propulsion system constantly shifts gears.
It is extremely difficult to be a true expert in this field. The competition is fierce, and one mistake can cost you months of work. If you are working for a client, you had better be certain that you do not get their site thrown into the “sandbox,” meaning that it will never be found. This is like being exiled to the far reaches of the Internet where only the most intrepid explorers will ever find them. It’s not good for business.
Administer at least five websites for at least a year. Do not link them to each other. Each is its own little petri dish that must not be contaminated. Be scientific about it. Develop theories and test them rigorously. Keep track of results. Note changes in the way the search engines index your site and in the way your visitors find it, and connect those changes to actions that you have taken (link building, keyword weight, social networking, etc.) Learn how to find the right keywords. This is not as simple as finding words that people search for and that are not insanely competitive. In this, you have to be somewhat intuitive. What keyword combination is a potential customer likely to use as opposed to a bored web surfer? Use different tools until you find one that works. I have my favorite, but I’m not allowed to mention it. Follow the link in the resource box and surf around my blog. You’ll figure out what it is. It may not be for you, but you can try it free. Get at least 20 pages to the top for fairly competitive keywords. This is what turns prospects into clients. Be a ninja. Once you figure out how to do it, take a cue from the people who write the search algorithms and keep it to yourself. Also train and improve continuously so that your skills do not slip.
That is how to become an SEO guru who commands top dollar with good reason, the good reason being that you know how to attract the right people, not just the most people. More on that later.
Today you not only need to know how to build a website but how to SEO optimize it. For all of you newbies, this means to optimize it for the search engines.
So how do we go about doing this? Well we start with keyword research. There are sites that you can go to for free like Google AdWords tools, paid keyword sites like wordtracker or you can purchase software to do the research for you. All of these methods are acceptable.
Here is the information that you need to know:
1) What are the exact keyword phrases that people are typing into the search engines to find your type of site?
2) How many sites have this word in their website domain name?
3) How many have it in their title tags?
4) How many have it in their meta tags?
5) How many have it in their alt tags?
You are basically looking to see a demand for your products and how much competition there is out there for those keywords and customers.
Now you will need a list of top keywords and these will go in your meta tags. Their are two primary metatags that you must include a keyword tag and a description tag with your main keyword and associated words included in it. These tags are located in the code at the top of your webpages.
Each web page should have different keywords. This is very important and most people get this part wrong. You will be penalized if every page has the same targeted words. You need to have your primary keyword in your website domain name. It should also be in the head tag, title tags and alt tags.
A major factor in higher rankings in the search engines is knowing the words and keyword phrases that people are looking for and knowing if your competition is using them correctly in designing their site. If you do just the five steps above, you will start outranking even some of the older sites.
These are the first steps. Next you need to make sure to include a contact us page, and about us page, a privacy page and a sitemap. You will submit the sitemap to the search engines and they will start to naturally spider all the pages of your website through this sitemap.
Now as far as content, you need from 500- 750 words per page and this should be original content. Include your main keyword, as well as related keywords in your content.
Finally search engines like Google, want to see back links to your site. A back link is a link from another site that has similar content. You can generate back links for free by writing articles and submitting them online to the article directories. Just sign up for free accounts, set up an author profile and begin submitting articles. At the end of each article there will be an author resource box. Here you will write two to three sentences about yourself and your site and direct them to your site with the URL. Each article that is accepted will automatically give you a back link. Sometimes these are picked up quickly and other times more slowly. Eventually though, Google will spider them and give you credit.
Those are the major things that you have to do to SEO Optimize your website. You can add to this pile with social networking sites and bookmarking but the above is definitely a good start.
Tags: Keyword Name, Keyword Phrases, Metatags
Wordpress is one of the most seo friendly publishing systems today, but to get the best results you still need to tinker with it a little bit!
So let’s see what steps you need to take to modify Wordpress so it will turn into a true seo CMS:
1. Permalinks structure: the default structure is no good at all – although search engines have no problem in indexing pages that have urls with variables, it’s very clear that they prefer clean urls.
The best results I have seen are when permalinks structure is set to “%postname%”, and only that. This is something to keep in mind for any site you build, Wordpress or any other CMS.
2. Related posts plugin ( tinyurl.com/262ao4 ): this is good for both your visitors and the search engines. It automatically finds related posts and displays them in a list – very useful when visitors arrive on a page looking for something and they get more info on the same subject.
3. Metatags plugin ( tinyurl.com/2fxota ): you simply can’t let the search engines handle the text your visitors see in the search engine result pages. You can influence your click-through rate very much just by handling this one aspect of your copy.
As for the search engine optimization aspect – the description metatag can move you up a spot or two when you are in the first 5 with small to medium competition. And it only takes a minute!
4. Sitemap Generator Plugin ( tinyurl.com/2zy4nx ): for a small site this wouldn’t be a problem, but when your page count goes over 50 indexing and maintaining a sitemap the old fashioned way just isn’t viable.
This plugin is actually more valuable because it creates both an XML sitemap (like those used by Google) and a normal, HTML sitemap for your visitors.
Some of its features include: support for multi-level categories and pages, category/page exclusion, permalink support, what order to list items in and many other options.
5. List of ping sites ( tinyurl.com/2ljwrb ): put this great list in the Options -> Writing -> Update Services box and every time you write a new post 56 sites will link to you. This is a great way to ensure a quick indexing of every post on your site and, given enough time, get quite a few backlinks with the text anchor you choose.
Some optimizers say that blog and ping doesn’t work anymore, but I do this everyday – it takes next to no time and the benefits are visible.
6. Technorati ( technorati.com ) is another easy way to make your Wordpress blog known, especially to other bloggers. Still, its biggest benefit is categorizing and indexing your content.
Create an account, claim your blog and then fill in the details in the blog settings page: write up a good description and then in the “tags” section fill in the keywords that represent your blog. Try to fill all the boxes but don’t spam. If you grabbed the list from no. 5 you’ll have all your posts listed in Technorati, and you’re going to see the benefits really soon.
Apply these tips and soon you’ll be on your way to more traffic and better ranking!
Tags: Page Exclusion, Seo, Xml Sitemap
There are really loads of methods and techniques how to do SEO. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. SEO is one of the best methods to generate targeted traffic to your website. Traffic comes from organic search engine listings and from my own experience, this traffic is the most targeted and hence valuable. Conversion rates are far way better from organic traffic than from any paid advertisement like AdWords. Nowadays internet is flooded with swindlers and scams, that’s why paid ads are getting less and less trusted…
This is why I consider SEO as the only reliable way to go for a long-term online business. First off, you need to choose one of all these techniques and strategies how to do SEO. It’s really easy to get lost in the beginning but then you will get more and more confident with every right step you make. Making on-page optimization is the most reasonable first step you can make.
On-page optimization means maintaining your keyword density at 2-4% out of all content, setting up the appropriate meta tags (not that important these days as it was before) and page tittles. If you have any images on your website, don’t forget to set your main keyword as an alt text of these images. Having your main keyword in the domain name is a very good idea to boost your rankings as well. These steps are the easiest from the whole SEO process and not making them chances are you are wasting your rankings straight away.
When you are fine with on-page SEO it’s time to get on off-page optimization. Many marketers dislike this process defining it as tedious one. Well, I can say that it’s all about how you are approaching it. When you know how to do SEO and are confident about the future results of your work, it’s not tedious or boring at all. Best of all is to set up your own working plan ad follow it.
When starting off-page SEO optimization it’s important to remember about the quality of backlinks you generate. Ten quality backlinks to your site worth a lot more than hundred of low-quality backlinks.
If you’ve built a site, or have had one designed and implemented for you, you are now going to need to Optimize it to rank for your given keywords. Here are some helpful tips to get you started, by no means will these get you on the first page right away, but utilized correctly you will begin to see an increase in your search engine rankings.
If you are reading this as someone who does not expect to do your own SEO, there are various packages you can affordably purchase on a monthly basis that will help your site rank. SEO takes a long time to learn every single technique, to learn what works for what niche, and to diversify your back-linking structure. Having someone do your SEO work for you is a good way to focus your efforts on what you know best. If this site is very important to you – you don’t want to make a crucial mistake like building too many back-links too fast and ending up in the Google sandbox.
Whether your site is a low quality MFA site targeting smaller volume keywords, or a large business in competition of Fortune 500 companies you’re going to need to optimize the site correctly if you want it to do well. As a first note, remember that having Google AdSense does not improve your ranking, it is a common misbelief that because you are now in partnership with Google, they will give you precedence, they won’t – you will rank just as quickly, or slowly, as everyone else.
Once you’ve optimized your sites keywords and meta descriptions to match your niche, you’ll want to make sure you’ve got enough content being updated each week. It is another common misbelief that the more backlinks you have to your site, the better. Rather be aware that the quality of the backlinks are much more important. Higher PR (page rank) sites linking to you will give your site more juice then pages with no PR at all.
On the same end of the scale you don’t want to have too many external links until your site can handle it. If this is a site destined for bigger things, look into black hat SEO, and then stay away from it; these techniques will inevitably get your site penalized by Google. When it comes to building links to your site, diversify your link portfolio. Write for other blogs in exchange for a link back to your site, use article directory submissions such as EzineArticles, Goarticles, and articledashboard. Submit your site to various social bookmarking sites and web directories.
There are many aspects to SEO and this is simply an overview of what is in store for you after deciding to start a website. There’s a lot to learn, and if you have the time it can be a fun and exciting endeavor. Be sure to look for forums, there are hundreds out there, and make a friend along the way to help you through problems you might be encountering.
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