SEO: Step-by-Step Search Engine Optimization

Proper SEO gets more traffic to your website. Set up your site right to get ranked high within the major search engines.

Also known as SEO, Search Engine Optimization is the process where your website is changed or ‘optimized’ to be noticed by the search engines. Proper SEO gets your website ranked higher for particular keywords.  The object is to bring more traffic to the site through organic (natural) search engine searches and have higher keyword rankings.  Optimizing a site with SEO takes time and patience and there are several key steps to take before the search engines will start moving you up the chain.

Search engine optimization involves many variables that come together to form the final ranking result.  These variables are your keywords and their locations, link partners, content and ongoing maintanence.  The search engines never tell you what criteria they use to rank websites, but they do give you a reasonable idea.  So focus on what you can do for SEO.

Key Steps to Preparing Your Site For SEO

1. Do SEO Keyword Research
2. Create a Site Map
3. Write Your Content
4. Get high quality inbound links

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• Conduct SEO keyword research

Start with a list of words you think your target market searches for.  Use an excel spreadsheet or something similar.  Use Wordtracker to find better keywords and add them to your list.  These keywords are the SEO basis of your site’s content.

The best SEO uses keywords and phrases that:

1. Match or relate well to the theme of your webpage
2. Are a popular search term or phrase according to <javascript>
3. Have low competition, type keywords into Google to check

• Create a Site Map for SEO

Design a site map that outlines each of your pages and how they link to one another.  Make sure that it flows well for both your customers and the search engines.  Drawing it out before you begin will make it alot easier.

Example:

Use your best SEO keywords in the titles of the Tier 2 and Tier 3 pages making it easy for the search engines to navigate through your site.  Always make sure your site is simple, not complex and that everything can be easily site-mapped.

• Write your SEO content

Once you have an extensive list of 500 + SEO-friendly keywords that have high demand and a low competition, start to develop your website content around those words.  The trick here is to focus first on high quality content and your keywords second.

Focus on one page and one SEO keyword grouping at a time.

The process of SEO optimizing a website is achieved by focusing on each page, making sure you check each page.

• Check spelling and grammar
• Make sure you have keywords that match the theme of your page
• Use 2-3 keywords (and variations of the same) for each page repeatedly
• Add your keywords to your title, headings and body of each page
• For your title use 8 words or less
• Include 25 words or less in your description meta tag – describe your the page in detail
• In your content, keep your keywords condensed at the top of the page and interspersed throughout

• Get High Quality Inbound Links for SEO

Search engines treat an inbound link to a website page as a one vote and the more links you have coming from quality sites the higher you will rank over time.  Yet this is only one strategy.  The strategies above must also be utilized to fully capitalize on your rankings and to improve the possibility of a good position.

The same applies to low ranking sites that link to yours.  If you link to low quality unpopular sites then this will be a vote against you and this will decrease your rankings.

If you want the search engine spiders to pick up your pages when you have finished SEO optimizing them, you need to submit them to each of the search engines.  But be patient as it can take a while before they find you. Some ways to fast track being listed is by submitting your site to the major directories.

1. Get listed at Dmoz
2. Pay for listing with Yahoo!
3. Only link with reputable and related websites
4. Write articles for your best keywords and submit them to the article directories

Take your time to find good keywords, write great content and linking to reputable websites and you will be well on your way to decent rankings with Google.  There is much more to learn as search engine algorithyms change and new strategies are formed.  But the search engines aren’t here to make life difficult.  Their objective is to provide excellent and relevant content for their customers and so should yours be.

If you want to stream-line your high quality link campaign take a look into <javascript> from Arelis.  This software automates and speeds up the process considerably.  There is software that include link analysis tools as part of their entire package such as <javascript> - a software I use now which is dedicated to SEO.  But, if you’re looking for an award winning software that is dedicated to creating high quality links for your site try the <javascript> .  I’ve used the free demo which was much like Web CEO, yet it’s primary focus is on link creation.