Search Engine Optimization Strategies 101
I have learned over the last ten years of internet experience that search engine optimization (SEO) can be an elusive service and often overcharged by “SEO experts”. So, in this article, I will explain in a simple and step by step way how to optimize for search engines so that your website stands out in the general search engine results. Here are some fundamental search engine optimization strategies to get you started.
Search engine optimization on website page
Do this first for your home page and your other important pages, and then move on to off-page SEO strategies. The information must be customized for each web page.
— URL: Use a URL that contains your most important keyword, and your subpage URLs must contain that page’s particular keyword phrase.
— Page title meta tag: no more than 100 characters; use your most important keywords in order of importance; don’t worry about having your business name in the title if keywords take up all the space.
— Page description meta tag: no more than 250 characters; use all your important keywords in order of importance; describe what you do.
— Meta Tag Keywords: listed in order of importance; less is more: use relevant keywords; keyword phrases are better than single keywords or chained keywords.
— Heading Tags: Use heading tags (H1, H2, H3) for your most important keywords.
— Alternative Image Tags: Enter keyword descriptions for the images on your website.
— Relevant content: Provide content based on your keywords that is useful to your web audience. Your home page should briefly say what you do and introduce your most important keywords (products/services), then use subpages to create more content and information about each keyword topic area.
— Fast page load
— good code
— Good and well organized navigation
— Create a SiteMap XML file: Submit to Google, Yahoo, Bing, and Ask.
— Have a blog: this is essential. Blog times a week. Blog on topics common to your keywords. Submit to Blog Directories and Blog Carnivals.
— Create an RSS feed for your website and blog: Submit to RSS feed directories
Off-page search optimization
These strategies also give you more web traffic and potential business (double benefit)…
— Submit your site to search engines: This is becoming less important, but still do it!
— Important Homepage and Subpage Social Bookmarking: Use social bookmarking to quickly get search engines to crawl or crawl your site, as well as increase your visibility and create viral marketing. Be sure to also send to Do Follow markers.
— Create a local business profile for Google, Yahoo and Bing – use your important keywords and choose/create as many relevant categories as possible.
— Write Articles: Write your articles on the top keyword topic areas and submit them to article directories and blogs. Place two text links to your website in the author resource area (links to pages on your site that deal with the particular keyword topic you are writing about). In content, backlinks from websites other than your own is one of the best SEO strategies right now.
— Submit your blog to blog directories and blog carnivals
— Submit your RSS feeds to RSS directories
— Create Social Media Pages and Submit: Create a Squidoo Page, a Hub Page, a Weebly Page, and a Wetpaint Page. Use different content for each in different keyword subject areas. Link to your site. Use no more than 9 backlinks for Squidoo and no more than 3 for Hubpages, as many as you like for the others. Submit pages to social bookmarks and submit RSS feeds for pages to RSS directories. Also create a LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Biznik profile with links to your site (you can also use them to generate more business and publish articles).
— Submit your website to internet directories – get valuable backlinks, more traffic and more business. Make sure you submit in relevant categories and have a description and website title that uses your keywords (rotate your titles and descriptions).
— Create and Submit Press Releases: Create a press release on each of your most important keywords and submit them to press release directories over time.
— Post comments on relevant, high PR blogs: Include a link to your website in your smart blog comment.
Important: For a new site, do this off-page SEO for a period of 6 months. For an established site, do this over a 3 month period.
If you follow these SEO tips, your site will make it to the first page of search engine rankings. However, you must give it time! Depending on the current position of your website and the quality of SEO, as well as the competitiveness of the keyword, it could take as little as several weeks or several months. Either way, it’s worth it!
If this sounds like a lot of work, it is. But if you want to capture the enormous earning power of the Internet, without having to pay very expensive click-through rates or Internet advertising, then it’s necessary.