(by 11 people)
SEO: it stands for Search Engine Optimization. I know most of you know that, but I want this resource to be useful to everyone, even complete beginners.
Search engine optimization, as you are also probably aware, is a preoccupation for just about every business on the Web. If they haven't got it, they want it. If they have it, they want more of it. Lots more!
And one more thing! Some people will tell you that SEO copywriting is expensive, so forget it. The truth is, in a highly competitive online environment, SEO is not expensive, it's priceless!
Successful Website Optimization
And so it is with SEO. Optimizing is a mixture of art and science. You will find that while the basics are the same, such as choosing keywords and avoiding techniques that will get you penalized by the Big Guns, for each project there area thousand variables and each SEO consultant will apply a different set of SEO rules. They'll all get good results though. Puzzling.
Again though, there are plenty of areas where everyone's in agreement, and I won't include anything here that even might get you penalized. Read on with confidence!
So how do we go about optimizing a website so that the search engines absolutely love it? Ideally, the process will begin at birth. Right from the beginning of the design stage, website concepting should be carried out with serious consideration to how the pages will be viewed by Google, Yahoo and MSN. Yes, there are tons of other search engines, but these three are the ones that will bring the bulk of your responses, so you'd better give them the lion's share of attention.
Reduce the Time it Takes Your Pages to Load
and your ranking will improve miraculously...
Then, keep pictures as small as you can, while still retaining the desired effect.
Try and hire someone who understands how to optimize your code and tags. Having optimized META tags allows you to tel the search engines how you want to be seen, and which keywords you want to be searched for.
Website code should be as light as possible. The old way of designing in HTML was very heavy: most designs would take ages to load, and this needs to be avoided at all costs. So developers tried to create methods of building web pages that didn't take ages to load, yet gave the results we demanded in terms of good looks and usability.
For a long time, cascading style sheets were cutting edge. They not only allowed for faster production of visually stunning web pages, due to the fact that graphical aspects of design are controlled by one central style sheet, but they meant that code volume could be slashed. Now, most of the pages you see on the web owe at least part of their appearance to CSS, including this one.
Now though, we have several new technologies coming up that promise even more amazing results than CSS. More about those later (keep checking back).
Select the Right Keywords
can you say "niche marketing"?
Next, web pages need around 300 words of quality content, enriched with your chosen keywords. Never include a keyword in your copy that isn't mentioned in your Keywords META tag, and never include a keyword in your META tag that isn't included in your copy.
Even when you have optimized your tags, copy and titles (try and include your keywords in your titles wiithout making it looks stilted and obvious), we're still not done.
You may get a good ranking with Yahoo and MSN just using the techniques we've already outlined. But to get anywhere at all with Google, you're going to need links, and as many of them as you possibly can. This is called external SEO, and it can make a world of difference to your online presence. One way to do it is to write articles and arrange for them to be posted on other websites with a link back to you.
Blogging can get you a lot of serious attention, both from the search engines and from potential customers. Blagging isn't for everyone though. It takes commitment and inspiration to be able to write about something every day over a long period of time. If you dont think you can do it, think about teaming up with another couple of writers with similar or complimentary businesses. You can both benefit from the juicy traffic an active blog can generate.
You can see more about selecting keywords on my new blog: marketmou.com-blog
Black Hat and White Hat SEO
Be careful where you hang your hat!
On the other hand, those who will turn their hand to anything in order to get fast results, often hurt others in the process, and their own website nearly always suffers in the long run. These people are called Black Hats.
Examples of their activities include pay per click fraud, content "cloaking," which is hidden text and hidden links.
There are areas of SEO practice that don't belong to either camp. You can read more about them by clicking on the Black Hat, White Hat link below.
Link Baiting
What you simply must do for your blog or website
One important source of links is 'linkworthiness,' if I can call it that. Put interesting enough content on your pages and people will want to link to it all by themselves. This is what Link Baiting is, put in the most simplified way.
It may take you some time, but think of something controversial or highly popular, and write about it. You may not see much action at first, but when it gets indexed and word gets out, if it's good enough, the traffic will come. And people will link to it.
I discovered a really excellent blog post on the subject a few days ago. I encourage you to go there now and do your online presence a favor by reading it: Brandon's blog. Incidentally, this blog is a perfect example of Link Baiting in itself: It is attracting a lot of attention because so many people are desperate to understand Link Baiting.
Other Methods of Getting Noticed
This is known as "external SEO," or "off page SEO." It can be even more important than "internal SEO," or "on page SEO, which is that which you do to your website!
Getting links is a critical strategy. With Google in particular, you will gain a little credibility for every single link you have coming into your site.
Inbound links that are not reciiprocal are far more valuable to you than those that require you to also have a link from your site to the linking site.
Another credibility boost is having highly relevant links. For example, valuable links for me would be anything to do with website optimization, and particularly SEO.
One of the best ways to get links is to get hold of a list of online directories and get busy. It's time consuming, but it works. If you'd like a list, contact me at consultant [at] marketmou.com.
New Del.icio.us!
Reader Feedback
Please submit a blurb to let me know what you think. Or...
Drop me a line and let me know if you got anything out of this, and if you need some other information that isn't here, drop me a line:
consultant [at] marketmou.com
If you need SEO copywriting help, you can reach me by email, or my web form.
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rskruzny
Marketmou, I had to play around with the link to Brandon's Blog as clicking on your link didn't work. I agree with your thoughts on how to get links. If the content is interesting, not necessarily even controversial, then people will be interested. Then the Search Engines will be interested. Posted February 03, 2008 |
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marketmou
Steve, most people use keyword/keyphrase interchangeably as I do--doesn't make me wrong. Posted January 22, 2008 |
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marketmou
Steve, most people use keyword/keyphrase interchangeably as I do--doesn't make me wrong. Posted January 22, 2008 |
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stevestuff
I do agree, pageload is very important, but I have to disagree with you on "Select the Right Keywords" - first, you need key-phrases, not keywords, there are very few searches done with a single word. Next, you mention that you need links (backlinks?); this does nothing for your SERP's nor for your SEO, it only helps with page rank: "... the PageRank measurement in Google's toolbar, directory, or through sites that query the service is of limited value. Pages with PR8 can be found ranked 20-30 positions below pages with a PR3 or PR4." See: http://www.site-reference.com/articles/Search-Engines/The-Google-Toolbar-PageRank-Demystified.html Posted January 21, 2008 |
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Amer-Shafi
Hmm. very good lens for new search engine optimizers. have a look on my site SEO Service and please give me suggestions to improve it. Posted November 06, 2007 |
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