Super Simple SEO

Anchor text refers to the words that make up a link. For example, "click here to read further" is anchor text for the link you want them to click. If you want a page to rank for a keyword that is particularly difficult, be sure to focus on getting the keyword in your anchor text.

Backlinks are the links from other web sites linking to your web site. It definitely helps to get back links for all of your web pages rather than just the home page.

Long tail keywords mean the keyword phrases containing 3 or more words.

PR or page rank is the rank given to the pages by the search engines, mainly Google. The higher the PR number, the better, getting back links from high PR sites is one of the important elements for ranking above your competition.

SERPs is the acronym for search engine result pages.

The three major factors that rank a web site high in search engine result pages (known as SERPs) are:

1 Relevant content. The web site content needs to contain the topic and the keywords people are searching for. In addition to the content, all meta tags, titles, headings, image tags, image names, video titles etc. have to contain the relevant keywords as well.

2Other sites linking to your site. In Google's eyes, a few big and important sites linking back to your site ranks you higher than a whole bunch of lesser sites linking back.

3Activity on your site. Search engines love fresh, dynamic content. A site which gets regularly updated and/or receives user activity ranks higher than the static sites. A web site featuring a blog or forum with high user activity is a good example.

Web pages need to be optimized with your chosen keywords in order to rank in the SERPs. The main keywords need to be in the content and other elements, however take care not to overdo it. The content needs to cater to humans rather than the search engines, and if the keyword density is too high, search engines will not like it at all.

If you are trying to rank for multiple keywords, don't throw them all in one page. A proven strategy is optimizing each page for one keyword.

Some webmasters design the site to serve two different versions of the page to search engine spiders and the human readers. Don't do it! If you get caught, they drop your rankings and blacklist you. There have been high profile cases involving major corporations in the past. Catering to search engine spiders may get you quick results, but they will not last. Besides, search engine bots don't buy the products you are selling, humans do. Optimize the pages for the search engines, but don't cater to them. Cater to the humans for long term success and stable traffic.

Here is the list of elements (other than the text content) you need to include your keyword phrases as part of your on-page SEO strategy:

1

Page title and page name. For blogs, set the blog software to name the pages accordingly instead of stuff like p=202. Make sure to put your keyword phrase in the html title tags as well.

2

Heading and meta tags. Make sure to put all of your keyword phrases in the meta tags of the home page and include nly the targeted keyword phrase in the description and keyword meta tags for each web page. Use one h1 tag per page with the most important keyword phrase. Use other heading tags (h2, h3, etc) to provide variations using keyword synonyms to support the main heading.

3

Pictures. Use the keyword phrase in the image names and alt descriptions, but make sure to include the words "image" or "picture" in your image ALT descriptions and captions. A lot of searches are for a keyword plus one of those words. That way you get your images ranked in image searches such as Google images. Many newbie marketers (even some experienced marketers) don't pay attention to this, so they aim to rank the text content only. If you get both the text and the images ranked, you will have an edge over your competition, especially if you are in a niche where people are searching for the images of the physical products they are planning to purchase.

4

Videos.If you upload videos to youtube and then embed them on your web pages, use the keyword phrases in the youtube tags and titles. It is important to ensure that keywords appear in the title, description, and tags.

5

Blog tags and categories. When optimizing your blog posts, optimize your post title tag independently from your blog title. Like the static web pages, give each post and page a focus on a single keyword phrase.. Optimize the text in your RSS feed just like your posts and web pages. Use descriptive, keyword rich text in your titles and descriptions.

6

Anchor texts when linking to the other pages on your web site. Make sure the keyword phrase for the targeted page is included in the anchor text.

Don't forget to optimize your splash pages!

You need to keep in mind that the search engine spiders can crawl text only; not Flash, multimedia or images, therefore it's crucial to tag these multimedia elements and surround them with keyword optimized text whenever possible. If you absolutely have to have your main page as a splash page that is all Flash or one big image or video, place the text and navigation links below the fold. Some black hat webmasters use invisible text set at the same color as the background, even pad the web pages with that, but that's not something I would recommend if you are aiming to get traffic. Search engine employees manually check high profile sites for shady activity like that and if you get caught, you will lose your rankings overnight. Fade the color enough to prevent the text from being an eyesore but make sure the human viewers can read it.

I am planning to add the following content modules within the next few days (if there is any other subject you want me to cover, drop me a blurb!)

Off-Site SEO: Backlinking basics
Quality over quantity?

Article marketing
How to use article directories efficently

Authority backlinks: Where to find them
High PR, .gov and .edu backlinks

Video marketing
SEO for video

Utilizing blogs
Blog comments, guest posts, blogrolls

Social media
Utilizing Facebook, twitter and other social networks

The human factor
Engaging the human readers and generating user activity