by 34 people |
Some months ago I relaunched myself as a freelance writer. To do that effectively I needed a website and I needed people to see my website. Here's how I put my site on steroids. Check out my other posts on promotion for even more information.
Step 1: Keyword Research
What is SEO?
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a way of making it easy for search engines to find and index web pages. The easier it is for search engines to find your pages, the more likely it is that someone will come to your website and offer you work or buy a product you've offered for sale. SEO increases traffic to a website or blog and makes it more likely that someone will click on ads and boost the site owner's Adsense earnings.
How do I optimize my website?
If you're launching a site from scratch, you start with keyword research. If you're updating an old site, start with keyword research. If you want to bring traffic to your blog (and can write about anything), start with ... (you get the idea). Think about what keywords best describe your website, business or blog and what similar keywords people are searching for. There are a few free tools that will help if you're on a tight budget. They are:
Overture
SEOBook Keyword Tool
Adwords analyzer
These tools are simple to use. You type the keywords you want into the form, enter and you get back a list of related keywords or the number of times those keywords have been searched in the past month. Once you've identified the keywords that are best for you, you need to put them into your page content.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a way of making it easy for search engines to find and index web pages. The easier it is for search engines to find your pages, the more likely it is that someone will come to your website and offer you work or buy a product you've offered for sale. SEO increases traffic to a website or blog and makes it more likely that someone will click on ads and boost the site owner's Adsense earnings.
How do I optimize my website?
If you're launching a site from scratch, you start with keyword research. If you're updating an old site, start with keyword research. If you want to bring traffic to your blog (and can write about anything), start with ... (you get the idea). Think about what keywords best describe your website, business or blog and what similar keywords people are searching for. There are a few free tools that will help if you're on a tight budget. They are:
Overture
SEOBook Keyword Tool
Adwords analyzer
These tools are simple to use. You type the keywords you want into the form, enter and you get back a list of related keywords or the number of times those keywords have been searched in the past month. Once you've identified the keywords that are best for you, you need to put them into your page content.
Step 2: Keyword Placement
Search engines search text and rely on metatags to come up with the titles and descriptions they list in their search results. Metatags can be seen when you select 'View, Source' in your browser menu. They are found in the <head> section of the page.
What are the most important metatags?
The main ones are:
<title> This comes up at the top of the browser and is the first line of an entry on a Google search. This should be short, or the most important aspects should be at the start.
<description>: This comes up as the second part of a Google, Yahoo or MSN listing. The description should be relevant to the site content.
<keywords>. Use a few, relevant keywords, rather than cramming in as many as you can type. Search engines usually downgrade you if they think your keywords are not relevant. When I researched my own site, I found that people searching for freelance writers also search for 'write articles'; those searching for ghostwriters also searched for 'write your life story', so I've included those in my metatags.
What are the most important metatags?
The main ones are:
<title> This comes up at the top of the browser and is the first line of an entry on a Google search. This should be short, or the most important aspects should be at the start.
<description>: This comes up as the second part of a Google, Yahoo or MSN listing. The description should be relevant to the site content.
<keywords>. Use a few, relevant keywords, rather than cramming in as many as you can type. Search engines usually downgrade you if they think your keywords are not relevant. When I researched my own site, I found that people searching for freelance writers also search for 'write articles'; those searching for ghostwriters also searched for 'write your life story', so I've included those in my metatags.
Books on Website Promotion
The Ultimate Website Promotion Handbook: A Step by Step Guide to Getting Page 1 Rankings with the Major Search Engines and to Making Money with Your Website
Amazon Price: $16.40 (as of 07/13/2009) 
Search Engine Optimization: Quick Version to Top Website Ranking
Amazon Price: $4.40 (as of 07/13/2009)
THE savvy way to successful website promotion; Attracting on-line traffic; Guide to top positioning on search engines
Amazon Price: $36.40 (as of 07/13/2009)
Step 3: Putting Keywords Into Page Content
Make those same keywords part of your content (again, avoiding putting too many in an obvious way). Make a list of the keywords you want to use, then start to write your page content, using the most important keywords a couple of times each.
Tip: One of the ways you can make search engines take more notice of these keywords is by using emphasis. Heading tags (h1, h2, h3), strong or b (to make text bold) and em for italics highlight the parts of the page you think are worth paying attention to and Google, Yahoo and MSN will take notice of them too.
Tip: One of the ways you can make search engines take more notice of these keywords is by using emphasis. Heading tags (h1, h2, h3), strong or b (to make text bold) and em for italics highlight the parts of the page you think are worth paying attention to and Google, Yahoo and MSN will take notice of them too.
Step 4: All About Links
To make your site more search-engine friendly make some of your keywords into links going further into your site. This will tell Google, Yahoo and MSN and other search engines which have found your home page that there's something else to look at.
Search engines like pages with lots of links. Inbound links are best (those are links from other sites to your page) - and will improve your PageRank quickly, but cross-linking of pages within your site is also good. Cross-linking shows that different pages of your website are relevant to each other - and relevance is a big factor in improving PageRank. If you know what you want to do with your site, this will be an easy step to take.
Search engines like pages with lots of links. Inbound links are best (those are links from other sites to your page) - and will improve your PageRank quickly, but cross-linking of pages within your site is also good. Cross-linking shows that different pages of your website are relevant to each other - and relevance is a big factor in improving PageRank. If you know what you want to do with your site, this will be an easy step to take.
Inspiration Station
These are resources that I've found useful while developing my website.
- Free Website Promotion and Development Course
- Free online course dealing with keyword research and placement, choosing and hosting a domain, creating a website that works and promotional tools to increase site visibility.
- Article Marketer
- A site I use to promote my free to reprint articles. This also boosts traffic to my site.
- Why Writers Should Use Social Bookmarking
- As we browse the Net, we often find information or websites that we think will be useful later. The old way of doing this was to use your bookmarks or favorites to keep a list of these places. You could even use scrapbooking tools such as those built into Opera or available for Firefox to keep notes on useful pages. But these tools m
- How To Market With Articles: Shameless Self-Promotion
- Now that you've made your site search engine friendly and submitted it to search engines and directories, it's time to up the ante and use a few more tried and true methods of raising your site's (or blog's) profile.
- Sharon's Writing Lab
- My experiments with writing - reviews, travel writing, memoirs and more.
Step 5: Map Your Site
A sitemap is one of the best ways of letting the search engines find the rest of your site. You should have a link to it off your home page and it should contain links to all the pages you want the search engines to find. A sitemap makes it easy for search engines and users to find everything on your site.
If you have a big site, this can take a while, but luckily there are lots of free tools that will do it for you.
Freefind provides a sitemap and free (ad-sponsored) search box for your site. Freefind will create a sitemap page, which you can customise to suit your web template. Freefind will also search your site at specified intervals and update the sitemap.
You can also create a special Google Sitemap (here's why) and upload it to your server. Two free online services are:
Sitemapspal
Online Sitemap Creator
You can also download Google's own Sitemap Generator.
How else can search engines find my site?
Some search engines look for a special file called a robots.txt file. This stays on your server and tells it which search engines can search your site and which can't. The reason to have one is so that you can block any search engine bots that bring spam in their wake. (This is only a basic level of protection, which relies on spam bots respecting the boundaries you have set.) However, you can also specify which folders search engines are allowed to spider just in case you're storing anything confidential on your server.
You can create a robots.txt file here then upload it to your server. It also provides an example of a robots.txt file.
If you have a big site, this can take a while, but luckily there are lots of free tools that will do it for you.
Freefind provides a sitemap and free (ad-sponsored) search box for your site. Freefind will create a sitemap page, which you can customise to suit your web template. Freefind will also search your site at specified intervals and update the sitemap.
You can also create a special Google Sitemap (here's why) and upload it to your server. Two free online services are:
Sitemapspal
Online Sitemap Creator
You can also download Google's own Sitemap Generator.
How else can search engines find my site?
Some search engines look for a special file called a robots.txt file. This stays on your server and tells it which search engines can search your site and which can't. The reason to have one is so that you can block any search engine bots that bring spam in their wake. (This is only a basic level of protection, which relies on spam bots respecting the boundaries you have set.) However, you can also specify which folders search engines are allowed to spider just in case you're storing anything confidential on your server.
You can create a robots.txt file here then upload it to your server. It also provides an example of a robots.txt file.
Step 6: Be Submissive
Your site is now ready for submission to search engines. Submit the main - or index - page of your site to Google, Yahoo and MSN; if you've got a good sitemap, the search engines will do the rest - eventually.
While you're waiting for the big three to find your site, have a look at some of the smaller search engines.
Google, Yahoo and MSN also crawl other search engines, so submitting to some of the lesser known ones (which are likely to list you faster) will help to get you on their list. A resource I found really useful was WebCEO, free software that automates website management and tracking. It includes keyword and page optimisation tools and a very good submission tool.
You can also submit your website to relevant directories, and I know of another free resource that will help you to do it. The SEO friendly directory list catalogues directories by interest and country and includes PageRank information for each directory listed. That means you can decide which directories are worth bothering with.
Resubmit your site every six months to keep the listing fresh and practice deep submission - submitting links to individual pages that you think are important.
Tip: Set up a disposable email address just for site submission, because you will get a LOT of email. You'll also find that you've been subscribed to lots of site promotion newsletters, most of which are a waste of time.
While you're waiting for the big three to find your site, have a look at some of the smaller search engines.
Google, Yahoo and MSN also crawl other search engines, so submitting to some of the lesser known ones (which are likely to list you faster) will help to get you on their list. A resource I found really useful was WebCEO, free software that automates website management and tracking. It includes keyword and page optimisation tools and a very good submission tool.
You can also submit your website to relevant directories, and I know of another free resource that will help you to do it. The SEO friendly directory list catalogues directories by interest and country and includes PageRank information for each directory listed. That means you can decide which directories are worth bothering with.
Resubmit your site every six months to keep the listing fresh and practice deep submission - submitting links to individual pages that you think are important.
Tip: Set up a disposable email address just for site submission, because you will get a LOT of email. You'll also find that you've been subscribed to lots of site promotion newsletters, most of which are a waste of time.
Freelance Mentoring Blog
Site Promotion And Freelance Writing Advice
Fetching RSS feed... please stand byStep 7: Keeping The Traffic
There are a few more things you can do to increase and retain the traffic you've started to build up. Here are a few suggestions to keep those numbers on the rise.
Join a few forums that are relevant to your area and post regularly. Most forums allow you to customise your signature so that every comment you make has a link back to your site or blog. These posts are also indexed by search engines.
Get a blog. The advantage of blogging is that that you can write more or less what you like and there's nothing to stop you from putting in affiliate links. This is perhaps the quickest way to get your content found as, for the time being at least, Google, Yahoo and MSN can't get enough of blogs and bloggers.
Use taggging. Make use of tagging. Posts or sites that are tagged by Technorati and del.icio.us (a social bookmarking service) are picked up very quickly by search engines.
Join a few forums that are relevant to your area and post regularly. Most forums allow you to customise your signature so that every comment you make has a link back to your site or blog. These posts are also indexed by search engines.
Get a blog. The advantage of blogging is that that you can write more or less what you like and there's nothing to stop you from putting in affiliate links. This is perhaps the quickest way to get your content found as, for the time being at least, Google, Yahoo and MSN can't get enough of blogs and bloggers.
Use taggging. Make use of tagging. Posts or sites that are tagged by Technorati and del.icio.us (a social bookmarking service) are picked up very quickly by search engines.
Step 8: Freshen It Up
If you've got your own site, you can keep the traffic coming and rise higher in the results pages by keeping the site content fresh. Add a couple of pages to the site or update something at least once a week. Better yet, add a blog to your site and update it regularly; this will keep the site fresh as far as search engines are concerned. You can then use a service like Pingoat to alert sites when your blog content has changed; there is also a blog directory where you can list your blog.
add an RSS (really simple syndication) feed for site updates and news (or include updates in your blog, which is likely to have its own RSS feed). Use the pinging service to alert people that your content has changed.
add an RSS (really simple syndication) feed for site updates and news (or include updates in your blog, which is likely to have its own RSS feed). Use the pinging service to alert people that your content has changed.
Cool Stuff on Ebay
Fetching new data from eBay now... please stand by
Tell Me What You Think
I'd love to hear from you
ViolinStudent wrote...
Good information. Website promotion is really important. Thanks for your effort.
Posted December 14, 2008
netventurer wrote...
We recently began experimenting with videos for YouTube, Google and Myspace. We have a couple of them on our lens, Brain Injury Guide
Posted February 06, 2008
MarcNorris wrote...
Great SEO guide for beginners - though I did pick up some valuable nuggets myself.
Might I suggest that you include the free keyword tool at Wordtracker too? Last time I used the one from Digital Point, it only half worked for me. The free Wordtracker one also gives you a list of the top 100 searches for the term as well.
Posted January 31, 2008
BizDevMarketing wrote...
5 stars, Sharon! (especially like the inbound links mod.) I'm an online marketer and could offer you some content from The Link Kitchen -- stop by and drop a note!">
Posted December 09, 2007
amberlei wrote...
Excellent site! Five stars. At BestWebsite.com we've compiled the The BestWebsite Essential 9 - The nine most important promotional things people can do right now to make their websites a profitable success. Check us out!
Posted November 26, 2007
nickupton wrote...
Thanks for these tips. I have been running a website for 1 year now and this info will prove very useful in imporving its ranking.
Posted September 25, 2007
by SharonHH
Sharon Hurley Hall is a freelance writer, editor and lecturer who has worked in journalism for 20 years. Sharon specializes in writing about writing,... (more)
