Search Engine Optimization Guide / SEO Guide

The first step to a good ranking is choosing the right domain name. The domain name should include your main keyword (phrase).
If you for example want to create a page about earning money as an affiliate, then try the following domain: www.earn-money-as-an-affiliate.com
You should always use hypens between the words, so it's easy to read and to remind.

Let's go back to the example above.
If your main keyword is "earn money" and another one is "affiliate", combine it together to the keyword phrase "earn money as an affiliate". You don't want to compete with the phrase "earn money", you will have (almost) no chance to get on the first page for that. Open Google and search for "earn money", you will find millions! of results. But if you search for "earn money as an affiliate" there will be much less results. And with such a keyword phrase it is much easier to get on the first page on the big search engines.

Keyword Density:
Make sure that your keywords or phrases appear multiple times within the text on your site. A keyword density of about 2%-5% is a general rule that you can follow.

Try to keep your webpage structure as flat as possible. Don't go deeper than 3 levels. Give also a meaningful name to the folders you create where you put your html files in. Try to even use your keywords in the name of the folders.
Do always link your single pages to each other, for example your page on the third level should link to the home page and to the other levels.

Try to also use your keywords in the filenames of your webpage. You anyway should write an own page for each of your keywords. So in my example let's say you want to write about the keyword "affiliate programs". It would look like that:
www.earn-money-as-an-affiliate.com/affiliate-programs.html
Again, use the hypens also for filenames (if you have more than 1 word in it).
Another point is to only use small letters in the filenames.

The golden rule is: Only use textlinks!
If you want to use buttons for the navigation, then use at least the ALT-tag with a meaningful name. Search engines only understand text, no pictures or flash.
But don't use phrases like "click here" or "go back". Also here, use always your keywords in the ALT-tags! For the above example with the filename, the ALT-tag on the button to the affiliate programs would then be: <"img alt="Affiliate Programs" /">
(without the quotes after < and before >).

The TITLE-tag is the most important tag for SEO. You can see the title on the top in your browser window. You always want to have your main keyword/phrase in the title of your page. When you get listed, the search engines use the TITLE-tag as the first line of the listing.

Meta tags are one of the oldest SEO tags and the top search engines know this. Search engines today do not look at meta tags like they used to. There are many rumours that search engines don't care about meta tags at all anymore..... I don't know if that is true.
What we know for sure, that the TITLE-tag is very important. And I always add the keywords and content as following:

<"meta name="keywords" content="make money as an affiliate, affiliate programs"/">
<"meta name="description" content="on this page I will tell you about some good affiliate programs"/">
(without the quotes after < and before >)

Those tags you also need to do for every single page for a special keyword.

Instead of using normal text (formatted bigger and bold), use the HEADLINE-tags H1-H6. Search engines are looking especially for H1 and H2. Use them as a Headline on every page, also with your keyword included.
If you think the format of H1 and H2 is too big, you can use CSS (cascading style sheets) with our own formats.

Search engine spiders look at content. When a spider hits your page it is going to scan the entire website, including the links that you have on your page.
As I already said, the keyword density should be around 2%-5%.
Write an own page for each of your keywords. And then, always use this keyword in the title, the headline, the filename and the meta tags for this page.

As already mentioned, search engines don't understand pictures. If you want to have some pictures on your page, then always use the ALT-tag for the picture. When you move your mouse over a picture with an ALT-tag, you see the text of it. Therefore it also makes sense, to use your keyword in the ALT-tag.
Be sure that you also name the picture with your keywords. Don't use names like picture1.jpg, instead take clickbank.jpg

If you have a good knowledge of HTML then shrink your code as much as possible. When you use a program like Dreamweaver or so it can be that it generates too much HTML code. So delete all the code which is not really needed and your file size will also shrink.
Try to use your formats via CSS, and also if you want to use some javascript, try to use it as an external file.
You can check your HTML code on the follwoing page:
HTML Validator

When you leave links on forums or blogs, please be sure to use the anchor text.
Anchor text means that you don't use your URL but an alternitive text for your link. Search Engines like it when you link like this. The best is when you even use your keyword in the anchor text. So be sure that you use links like that in your signatures on forums and blogs.
See the example below:

No Anchor Text:
http://www.squidoo.com/search-engine-optimization-secrets
Anchor Text:
Search Engine Optimization Guide

<"a href="http://www.squidoo.com/search-engine-optimization-guide">Search Engine Optimization Guide</a">
(without the quotes after < and before >)
Becomes:
Search Engine Optimization Guide

A Backlink is a link from another website to your website.
Backlinks are the key for your traffic and search engine ranking. Search engines like it when they find other pages linking to you. The best is when the linking page is also about the same topic and uses similar keywords. Let's even say that pages not about your topic should not link to you. Or at least not too many pages, otherwise the search engines could look at this as spam, and you definitely don't want that!
The more quality backlinks to your site, the more attention you're going to get from search engines. And if the linking page has a higher page rank than you have, that's even better.

So where can you get some nice backlinks?

Articles
You can write articles about your webpage and submit it on a one of the famous article pages, such as EzineArticles. But don't submit the exact same text on more than one page! Always change some parts in your text, otherwise you risk double content, and search engines don't like that at all!

Forums
Sign up for some related forums and place your links, or use it in your signature. Be sure to write about related topics and good content. If people realize that you just want to promote your site they won't visit it!

Other Websites
Get a link back from another site which is about the same topic. Try not to do link exchanges if possible. And don't forget what I told you about incoming links. Best is you send the webmaster the exact code how you want to be linked.

Directories
Search for related directoreis and submit your page. The most famous one is probably
dmoz.org

Blogs
Same here. Search for related blogs and post some good content with your links in signature. A good page to submit your own site is Blog Your Site

Social Media/Social Bookmarking
Social media sites are the newes way to promote your site. These sites give you good backlinks and it's easy to submit your page there.
Use Onlywire to submit your site to 30 different social media sites at the same time.