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SEO Tips for Newbies

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Search Engine Optimization Tips for Newbies

 

SEO (search engine optimization) can be a difficult subject for newbies to tackle. There's so much conflicting information, and the rules seem to change all the time!

But there are a few tips that should keep working month after month, year after year, and will probably never change. These tips can be used to increase your search engine ranking this week, next week, and probably even several years from now.


Search Engine Optimization For Dummies, Second Edition
(For Dummies
(Computer/Tech))

Search engines look for a few main things in order to tell whether or not a site may be good enough to index and rank. They look for the words that were searched for to be included on the site, or in the links that point to the site.

They look for other sites linking to that site, because people don't usually link to sites that are spam or really poor quality. They want to see high-quality content that reads well to visitors and relate to the keyword that was searched for.

And they want to see a site that is updated often - a site that the owners really seem to care about. As long as you work hard to deliver what the search engines are looking for, and you produce content that people want to read and link to, you won't have to worry too much about search engine optimization.

SEO will mostly take care of itself if you provide good content and if you follow a few very simple rules. As long as you always keep these rules in mind, your SEO should work out naturally!

But remember, SEO doesn't usually work overnight. Although your site may rank well for the first few days after it's indexed, most sites lose their rankings fairly quickly and don't rise back to the top for a few weeks to a few months.

Don't panic! Your site will eventually climb back up the rankings as long as you keep following our tips. Plus, you can use some SEO tools to help hasten the process and keep you ranked well for the long-term.

Search Engine Optimization in an Hour a Day 

A fantastic book on perennial SEO ideas!

Search Engine Optimization: An Hour a Day

Amazon Price: $29.99 (as of 07/26/2008)
List Price: $29.99

This was the book that got me started in serious SEO. I read it over and over again. I had dabbled in SEO for years, but my sites really took off after I read this book and began to apply its principles to my sites. I can't stress enough how great this book is for anyone who wants to learn more about SEO!

Release Date: 12/31/1969

Avg. Customer Rating: Amazon Rating

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Don't Over-Optimize Your Site! 

Over-optimizing is much worse than under-optimizing!

These days search engines are really smart. They seem to be able to tell if you're purposely trying to game the system, so it's more important than ever to be careful about your SEO habits.


Search Engine Optimization

You do need to do some search engine optimization, of course. You should still put keywords in your title tag. You should still get relevant backlinks to your site using keywords as anchor text. And you should still use H1 tags on your site.

Over-optimization is when too many factors are identical. For example, if your title tag is "books about cats," and your H1 tag is "books about cats," and 90% of your backlinks use the anchor text "books about cats," then it may look like you're trying too hard.

The search engines might be afraid your site is spam, with no real value. Natural sites don't do this. They write naturally.

They don't generally use the same keyword or phrase over and over and over. They don't typically have a ton of backlinks with the EXACT same anchor text. And they don't usually have the exact same phrase that's in their title tag as the H1 tag.

Be very careful not to over optimize your site. It could be much worse to do this than to use too few keywords, or have no H1 tag at all!

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Write for Users, Not Search Engines! 

It's very important to write naturally.

Writing naturally is very important if you want a good chance at ranking well with your SEO efforts. If you use the same keyword or phrase over and over on the same page, search engines may think you're trying too hard to work the system.


Search Engine Marketing, Inc.:
Driving Search Traffic to Your Company's Web Site
(Ibm Press)

This may lead them to believe that you're trying to spam their search engine. Not only do you need to worry about what the search engines think, you should worry about your visitors, too.

If your articles are very poorly written and don't make sense, they're probably going to leave your site long before they have a chance to click one of your ads or see what you're selling.

Just be careful to write every article as if you were writing for print. Provide good, solid information that people would want to read and link to.

Don't worry about stuffing your site to the gills with keywords. You wouldn't worry about keywords if you were writing for a print magazine, so don't worry about it online.

As long as your keyword phrase appears in your title, and a few times in your text, that's all that's really necessary. Any more than that and you might get hit with an over-optimization penalty. If you're unsure about what you're doing, invest in a good SEO software that will help analyze your site for effective search engine performance.

The SEO Bible 

SEO: Search Engine Optimization Bible

Amazon Price: $26.39 (as of 07/26/2008)
List Price: $39.99

This is truly the bible of SEO. It has more information about SEO than most people would be able to handle, it it is a major resource for anyone who really wants to learn SEO well. This book can teach you practically everything you need to know to rocket your site to the top of the SERPs!

Release Date: 12/31/1969

Avg. Customer Rating: Amazon Rating

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Top Ten SEO Tips for Newbies 

The ten most important tips to always remember!

These are the ten most important SEO Tips that newbies need to know:
  1. Put two or three of your main keyword phrases in the title tag of the page. Don't be spammy! The title tag is probably THE most important part of on-page optimization! NEVER use a single phrase in your title, because you could be penalized for over optimization. 2-3 phrases of 2-3 words separated by - or | is fine.
  2. Don't worry about keyword density. Write naturally. Don't repeat keywords intentionally! It's more important to have too little density than to have too much!
  3. Select your keywords carefully. For example, don't try to optimize for "books", optimize for "books about cats." (If you sell books about cats, that is!)
  4. Be sure other sites link to you with your keywords. If your site is called "books about cats," you should have some people link to you with that phrase. But don't overdo it! You should also vary the anchor text sometimes so it doesn't look intentional or spammy.
  5. Keep getting backlinks. Don't try to get thousands of backlinks in your first month, because that might look suspicious to the search engines. Keep getting links steadily.
  6. Your domain should contain one of your main keyword phrases, but never use more than two hyphens in a domain. A .com domain is preferable, but if you can't get a phrase without dashes, a .net or .org domain would be fine. Only go with .info if no other good domains are available.
  7. Be careful not to OVER-optimize! So many people try to fit in every single SEO tip they've ever heard of, but this could look suspicious. Don't use a single keyword phrase as your title, H1 tag, article title, anchor text, and file name. That's just asking to be penalized for over-optimizing!
  8. Be careful not to bleed PageRank out to pages that don't matter. PageRank CAN be passed to pages on your own site! Put a "nofollow" tag on any page that doesn't need to be indexed, such as your privacy policy and your contact page. Also, put the "nofollow" tag on any link that goes out to a site you don't own or care about. This helps pass more "PR juice" to your own internal pages.
  9. Make use of the H1 tag on each page, but don't make the text in the H1 tag the same as your title. Use only one of the phrases in your title, or use a secondary phrase.
  10. Use synonyms and related words. If your site is about flower gardening, search engines are probably going to expect to see words like "soil," "dirt," "seeds," "garden," and "water." Search engines are now finding themes in sites, and aren't just looking for certain keywords to appear multiple times.

Have an SEO Question or Tip? 

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Posted July 11, 2008

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