A Simple Explanation of SEO

The very mention of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) creates a sense of awe in some people. It's almost thought of as a black art. It's not a black art - the type of SEO most people need to use to figure well in the search engines is actually quite straightforward. Here's a summary.

SEO breaks into 2 parts:
1) On site
2) Off site

On site SEO is about making it easy for the search engines to find out what your site's about and where to find specific information within it.

Here are some steps you need to take:
Firstly, fill out your META data fields and do that for each page on your site individually. These are the three most important fields:

1) Title
2) Description
3) Keywords

Here's a link to a free online resource for creating META tags:
http://www.htmlbasix.com/meta.shtml

Follow the instructions on that page.
Secondly, make good use of your h1 and h2 tags on each page.
Thirdly, make navigation of your site complete, clear and easy to follow.
Fourthly, create a sitemap - and here's a link to a free online resource for doing that:

http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/

Just follow the instructions they give you on that page.
Off site SEO is about getting quality inbound links to your site.
For that you can use article marketing, forum marketing, commenting on blogs and participation in Social Networking groups.
Avoid link farms, link exchanges, buying links or anything else that seems like a good idea at the time.

Of the things I've mentioned above only META data and sitemaps are targetted specifically at the search engines.

And even with the META data, both the page titles and descriptions are aids for people.

Everything else I've mentioned makes it easy for people to find and navigate your site.

The search engines are continually making changes to their algorithms, but the one thing that remains unaffected by these is the effectiveness of good quality content.

The point I'm trying to make is this:
Design your site for people. Write it for people. Make it easy for people to find your site, understand what your site's about, and find their way around it.

Designing your site so it's easy for people to find and navigate also makes it easy for the search engines.

And, most importantly, write good stuff. Fill your site with good content - that's what will attract and keep people there.

If you implement all these points on every page of your site you will begin to attract high quality traffic from the search engines.


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SEO - Top 10 Tips to Top Google

Search Engine Optimization services which are also known as SEO are needed to perform well in the search engines. More importantly finding a google search engine optimization services company is needed to rank in the most popular search engine itself. When trying to grab that top place, you need to focus on several factors. This article is composed of methodologies that are widely accepted by SEO professionals. These are arranged from most to least important from my personal, yet educated opinion. This was actually stated by google in their own publications.

Search Engine Optimization Link Popularity
Your sites link popularity is the main and most important factor when trying to improve your SEO campaign. You must focus on obtaining inbound links from quality and relevant sites. Several methods are submitting to link directories, reciprocal linking, article distribution, video blogging, forums and social bookmarking.

Using Keywords In The Meta And Title Tags
Second on our list is placing your keywords you are trying to obtain top rankings for within your title, description meta tag and keywords meta tag. In google SEO, your title tag only allows 8-9 words within the title tag for their search engine results. So limit yourself to 9 words (use as many as possible) and then move forward.

Time Your Web Site Has Been Indexed
Something that the search engines have placed a lot of emphasis on is "sandboxing" new sites on the internet. On average this process takes 3-4 months to get out of. The longer that your site is online the more trusted your site will be to the search engines. Ideally I believe a site is going to benefit most when it has been consistently indexed for 2 years or more.

Anchor Text Of Inbound Links
Even if you have a large number of inbound links, they won't do a lot of good if they aren't linked with good anchor text. Anchor text is the actual text that is clickable within the link. Keep links around 3-5 words long. Many search engine optimization experts believe bolding your links will improve rankings as well.

Link Popularity On Sub Pages
It is highly believed that sub pages within your web site must have inbound links and popularity for your entire site to succeed (including your home page). Even if you have a successful site right now, it could do even better with inbound links to sub pages.

Relevancy Of Inbound Links
Links coming to your web site must be coming from relevant sites with relevant content! This is extremely important.

Link Popularity Of Your Site Compared To Your Competitions
This is another seo factor that deems a lot of attention when it comes to google seo tips. You must make sure that you have comparable link popularity to your competition for certain key terms. Without comparable link popularity you simply won't succeed as much as you want to.

Keyword Use In Your Pages Content
You must use your top key terms within the content of your web site. Certain key phrases can show tremendous growth by having the exact phrase within the content of your site itself. Google loves unique content and google loves relevancy.

How Popular Are The Sites That Are Linking To You - Are They Relevant?
Quality inbound links should come from recognized or semi popular to popular sites. These sites must also have similar content to your topic. If they come up high under your key terms, they are a great site. You should try to obtain links from these web sites.

Using Good Tools To Help With Search Engine Optimization or SEO?
You must perform research of key terms. I use google's keyword tool personally, however there are many out there. Also I recommend using SEO programs to analyze your competition.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Joel_E_McLaughlin

How to Use Keywords to Optimize Your Website

Keywords refer to terms that capture the essence of a website. These keywords can consist of a word or phrase and they are created by analysing the type of search phrases that are associated with the products or services that are on offer from your business.

A keyword represents a word with special significance; however it is figuring out what the best keywords are for your website that will take the most time. Choosing keywords that are most appropriate to your website is not as simple as coming up with a bunch of words that people might search for; it is about finding words which best refer to your business and the products/services that are on offer from your website. It is about what people will search for in order for your website to appear at the top of the search engine results. So if your website is based on special occasions then some of your keywords might be weddings, parties and birthdays. With these keywords in mind you then have to think about what people will search for based on these words and then you should ensure that your keywords are placed throughout your website so that when someone searches these keywords the search engines will find these keywords on your website and list your site in the search results.

To make sure that your website is targeting the correct keywords for your business and the products/services associated with your business you need to conduct some level of keyword research. This keyword research is the building block for search engine optimisation. This is because these keywords or key phrases are used as a way of identifying your website to the search engines. Finding keywords and phrases which are relevant to your website and implementing them in your pages and links will help a search engine identify your webpage when a search is conducted for that particular keyword or phrase.

In our society today there are many tools available, and by tools I mean websites, which exist to find keywords that are appropriate to your website and business. It should however be noted that keyword optimisation isn't just a one off job; you have to continually analyse and change your site to ensure that it is optimised to the best it can be for your keywords.

Getting to the top of search engines can be a daunting task but with the right search engine optimisation, which includes keyword research it can be done with ease. Keyword research is the process of selecting the most searched for keywords that are linked to your website. If you have spent months ensuring that your website is exactly how you want it, it will have all been for nothing if you don't target your keywords. Therefore the biggest step to getting your website off the ground is by identifying your target audience and researching what keyword phrases people may be searching for to find your website.

One last point when it comes to targeting your keywords is that you should include all variations of your keywords due to the fact that people will search for you site using a variety of keywords so to take this into account you should target your keyword as well as misspelled, capitalised and plural versions of your keywords or phrases. Also always include longer or shorter forms of your keyword such as explain and explanation. By doing this you will make sure that all forms of your keyword are covered.

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