Learn Basic Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Techniques
We could divide the concept of the search engine optimization into two main tasks: First, knowing what words people are using for searching and second, optimizing your site for those keywords.
But how do you know what words people are using when
searching? There are some sites where you can enter
words and they will tell you how many times those words
were used in a given time, try:
http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion
or
http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion
Just enter some search terms related to your content
and you will get how many times those search terms were
used along with some variations that you could find
useful.
So, which search term will you choose? The one with the highest search count? WRONG! Especially if you are just starting, always keep in mind that the strongest keywords will have the biggest number of competitors and the strongest ones, which will not work with you if you are just starting. My advice is to choose keywords with a reasonable search count and move upward afterwards.
Now after you have chosen your keywords, how do you optimize your site for those words? Well, most SEO experts divide this process into two main tasks: Onsite or on-page optimization and offsite or off-page optimization where on-site optimization means what you do in the pages of your site and off-site optimization are the steps not done on your site.
On-site SEO Basics
Page Title: Always add your keywords in the titles of your pages but without spamming, meaning do not overdo that. Also, use a different title for every page that reflects what this page is about. Never use titles like Page 1 or mysite.com as those will never be good for SEO purposes. Very long titles or titles with repeated keywords are bad too.
HTML Tags: Include your main keywords between <h1> (Header1), <h2> (Header2) and <b> (Bold) tags.
Internal Links: Internal links are very important for search engine optimization, always remove your broken links and make sure search engine spiders can reach almost all pages in your site.
Anchor Text: Anchor text is the text that you see for links; always include your keywords in the anchor text of your internal links.
Hidden Text: NEVER use any hidden text tricks for your keywords (like having the same color for both the text and the background). If you do that, search engines will penalize your site and may even remove your site from their index completely!
Content: Content is the king for your visitors and for search engines as well. Provide a good and unique content and make sure to include your keywords in your content but do not overdo that. Duplicate content is not good for SEO, be unique.
Meta Tags: Like meta description and meta keywords, Most search engines (like Google) do not give much weight for meta tags nowadays because many people used to spam them with keywords that may not even exist in content but they still carry some weight for other search engines. Include your keywords in your Meta tags without overdoing it.
Off-site SEO Basics
Off-site or off-page optimization means the SEO not done in your own site. Many SEO experts say that while onsite optimization is good and will benefit your site, offsite optimization has much more power to change your position in SERPS.External Links: External links might be the most powerful SEO factor; search engines including Google have this rule: If there are many good sites linking to yours then you must have a good content. That is why they will give you a higher rank. Avoid link farms and always remember: the more outbound links the web page has, the less value each link have for search engines.
PageRank: The quality of the pages linking to you have more power than quantity. Google for example gives some "weight" for every page in its index called PageRank, your PageRank is changing all the time when Google bots visit your site (assuming you have made some changes) or when they discover new sites linking to yours. They export this data for the Google tool bar about four times a year. The rule is the more PageRank the web page that is linking to you has, the more value this link has. You will need Google tool bar to know the PageRank of the pages linking to you.
Anchor Text: The anchor text of the external links to your pages has the greatest effect for your position in SERPS when people are searching for those search terms. If more people are linking to your site using variations of your keywords in the anchor text, this will give you a powerful push for those search terms.
Content: The content of the pages linking to you is very important for your SEO, the more related content they have to your keywords, the more power those links have.
Purchasing Links: Google does not like purchasing links for SEO purposes; they even want webmasters to mark the purchased links using "nofollow" tag. They have some algorithms to identify the purchased links to devalue them, why do they do that? Because search engines want their results to be as accurate is possible and purchasing links affects this badly. Suppose you have a good site that 1000 sites are linking to because it really has a good content, what if I make a bad site and buy 10,000 links? Should I rank better than you? I think you have got the idea now. I do not say that Google will penalize you if they discover that you have bought a link with no "nofollow" tag because if they do that, people will start linking their competitors to have Google penalize them! Google just does not count those links in its algorithm. So if you want to buy links, buy them for traffic not for ranking.
So how could you get people to link to your site if you do not buy links? Just build a good site that people want to link to and let them know you have this site. Use forums, directories, social networking and every place else that you could think about to let people know about your site. Believe me, if you have a good content, people will be more than happy to link it without even asking.
Outbound Links: The sites you are linking to have a big effect on your site. Always make sure you are linking to good sites. Linking to bad sites will make search engine penalize you and may even ban your site completely!
Those are not the final words for SEO techniques but I have tried to gather for you the most important points that you could do to get you better search engine positions and hopefully more traffic. Always remember: Never overdo any of those techniques and the golden rule, Build your site for your visitors not for search engines!
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Current Comments (1)
Nice article - thanks for sharing.