Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via "natural" ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results for targeted keywords. In this article find out how to do basic SEO, code search engine friendly pages and how to do a basic promotion of your site.
For this I will use one of sites I’ve made, it is AdSense site and it follows SEO rules and it is good example what to do and what not to do. This site is http://www.aboutdoghealth.org/ so let’s start from the top.
Things to do
- Keywords in URL
For example http://www.aboutdoghealth.org/ use whole words – keywords to best describe your site. Don’t rely on this if you don’t have keywords in other parts of your site. - Keywords in <title> tag
This shows search results as your page title, so this is one of the most important things and it shouldn’t be long 5-6 words max, and use keyword at the beginning. - Keywords in anchor texts
Also very important, especially for the anchor text, because if you have the keyword in the anchor text in a link from another site, this is regarded as getting a vote from this site not only about your site in general, but about the keyword in particular. - Keywords in headings (<H1>, <H2>, etc. tags)
One more place where keywords count a lot. But beware that your page has actual text about the particular keyword. - Keywords in the beginning of a document
While coding your page put your main content before side bar. Because this also counts, though not as much as anchor text, title tag or headings - Keywords in <alt> tags
Spiders don't read images but they do read their textual descriptions in the <alt> tag, so if you have images on your page, fill in the <alt> tag with some keywords about them. - Anchor text of inbound links
This is one of the most important factors for good rankings. It is best if you have a keyword in the anchor text but even if you don't, it is still OK. - Origin of inbound links
It is important if the site that links to you is a reputable one or not. Generally sites with greater Google PR are considered reputable and the .edu and .gov sites are the most reputable - Links from similar sites
Having links from similar sites is very, very useful. It indicates that the competition is voting for you and you are popular within your topical community. - Metatags
Metatags are becoming less and less important but if there are metatags that still matter, these are the <description> and <keywords> ones. - Unique content
Having more content (relevant content, which is different from the content on other sites both in wording and topics) is a real boost for your site's rankings. - Frequency of content change
Frequent changes are favored. It is great when you constantly add new content but it is not so great when you only make small updates to existing content. - Site Accessibility
Another fundamental issue, which that is often neglected. If the site (or separate pages) is unaccessible because of broken links, 404 errors, password-protected areas and other similar reasons, then the site simply can't be indexed. - Sitemap
It is great to have a complete and up-to-date sitemap, spiders love it, no matter if it is a plain old HTML sitemap or the special Google sitemap format.
Things not to do
- Keyword stuffing
Any artificially inflated keyword density (10% and over) is keyword stuffing and you risk getting banned from search engines. - Keyword dilution
When you are optimizing for an excessive amount of keywords, especially unrelated ones, this will affect the performance of all your keywords and even the major ones will be lost (diluted) in the text. - Single pixel links
when you have a link that is a pixel or so wide it is invisible for humans, so nobody will click on it and it is obvious that this link is an attempt to manipulate search engines. - Cross-linking
Crosslinking occurs when site A links to site B, site B links to site C and site C links back to site A - Duplicate content
When you have the same content on several pages on the site, this will not make your site look larger because the duplicate content penalty kicks in. To a lesser degree duplicate content applies to pages that reside on other sites but obviously these cases are not always banned - Doorway pages
Creating pages that aim to trick spiders that your site is a highly-relevant one when it is not, is another way to get the kick from search engines. - Cloaking
Cloaking is another illegal technique, which partially involves content separation because spiders see one page (highly-optimized, of course), and everybody else is presented with another version of the same page. - Invisible text
This is a black hat SEO practice and when spiders discover that you have text specially for them but not for humans, don't be surprised by the penalty. - Illegal Content
Using other people's copyrighted content without their permission or using content that promotes legal violations can get you kicked out of search engines. - Flash
Spiders don't index the content of Flash movies, so if you use Flash on your site, don't forget to give it an alternative textual description. And also don’t have just flash home page without HTML one. - Frames
Frames are very bad for SEO. Avoid using them unless really necessary. - Redirects (301 and 302)
When not applied properly, redirects can hurt a lot – the target page might not open, or worse – a redirect can be regarded as a black hat technique, when the visitor is immediately taken to a different page. - Bans in robots.txt
If indexing of a considerable portion of the site is banned, this is likely to affect the nonbanned part as well because spiders will come less frequently to a “noindex” site. - Session IDs
This is even worse than dynamic URLs. Don't use session IDs for information that you'd like to be indexed by spiders.
Submit your site
- To Google
http://www.google.com/addurl/ - To Yahoo!
http://search.yahoo.com/info/submit.html - To MSN
http://search.msn.com.sg/docs/submit.aspx - To FastSubmit
http://www.evrsoft.com/fastsubmit/ - To SubmitExpress
http://www.submitexpress.com/submit.html - To dmoz
http://www.dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/On_the_Web/Message_Boards/
And also a good and easy way to promote your site is to submit it to inspiration galleries, you can see most of them here
Have some feedback? Leave a comment
Great SEO tips!!! Very informative
riding the ponzi
This is some really good advice. Most of these points I take in to account when optimizing a website. There are other things too that I take in to account such as making sure that there are at least 250 words of content on each page I am optimizing
Nice checklist. I’ve noticed with the new Google Caffeine the results change much for frequently. I don’t think weightings have changed that much, just that things happens so much faster.
Great Informations, this can realy enhance an dimprove my website to atract more traffic, keyword is really crucial, that is the first idea that comes out of th emind of a persson looking for something. Thanks and Cheers
Edgardo Yaona
Vic. Australia
Good tips, but you still need to generate lots of unique content and optimise each new page and try get a few links to each new page.
As a long time web designer, I have been interested in doing more with my websites to make them SEO friendly. I have written some of your points. Thanks!
This was invaluable for someone trying to promote themselves on a tight budget and I will be reworking my life coaching and training site over the weekend to capitalise on your advice. Great stuff.
Why are you giving away so many good SEO tips?
Thanks for the tips, i’ll have to try some on my site!
Awesome! It helped me with my first site and i think that it will help me too with another one!
Great tips, if available please tell me more sites to submit on
Regards
You really explained all major key tips to keep in mind so as to be loved by search engines. Most of us know but fail to apply, I have reviewed them all and will re-check about doing these again..thanks again..
How long does it take to acheive page rank?
thanks
how long does it take to acheive pagerank?
Nice over view of SEO. Is good for beginners or DIY types
A very good post. How quickly can you expect to see results by following your SEO tops?
Which factors do you think are the most important for SEO?
Hello,
All points are very important ,
I will comment on Unique content ,
Unique Content is Your first step towards success in the search engines.
This domain seems to get a good ammount of visitors. How do you advertise it? It gives a nice unique spin on things. I guess having something real or substantial to post about is the most important factor.
It didn’t occur to me that links from thematically similar sites carry more weight, but it seems so obvious when you think about it. Although I can’t work out whether Google treats .edu and .gov as intrinsically better, or that they just tend to have more high quality backlinks. Either way, thanks for the article! Much appreciate it.
Outstanding weblog post, a bunch of fine information. I’m about to show my pals and ask them the issues they think.
Which factors do you think are the most important for SEO?
Good post! Great SEO tips.
Thanks.
Thanks for really good share.. good post!..
Thank’s for great free seo tutorial….,Some of them is new for me
Warm Regard’s
This a huge yet useful links.
Really worth sharing.
Just have a question, with all these information about search engine optimization, do you believe that there is such a thing as free SEO? I believe that SEO costs time and money, learning and applying all these techniques to our sites. I’m interested to know your thoughts about it.
Cheers,
Dave
Well ,an article about keyword is really unique,I myself was looking for some keyword tips and came across this page,ideal to refer to someone,as it covers every necessary concept
Thanks
After I read this article then I realized that there are still many things that I need to learn about SEO. Thank you for this information.
Straightforward SEO basics at it’s best, awesome information thanks a lot
The hardest part about SEO is link building. I find that tedious and rather complicated. Social media seems to be playing an important role in rankings too.
Oh thats why my new site is not ranked! İ did it somre days ago. about tercüme
that means translation and i wrote in every language the same text in the posts only languages names were changed. i changed now no more dupl. content. and i got ranked. but still not enough :/
Thanks You really explained all major key tips to keep in mind so as to be loved by search engines.
Wow, all of SEO tips summed up in a nice list of to do’s and what not to do’s, I appreciate this information, thank you greatly
This is really a fascinating blog, lots of stuff that I can get into. One thing I just want to say is that your Blog is so perfect!
Wow, Great post,Nice work, I would like to read your blog every day Thanks
Super helpful post, thanks.
Have to disagree with you about the keywords metatag, but otherwise good stuff.
Thanks for the seo information. It will help me with my site
Very useful post, I am glad someone is sharing this information. Usually seo experts keep this stuff to their self
Amazing pointers on SEO, some the simpliest things make a huge diffrence, thanks for sharing value with us.
http://www.outlet-louisvuittonukcom.com/louis-vuitton-agendas-damier-ebene-canvas-c-72_74.html
I read too much of theme
Thanks for really good share.. good post!..
Very go information on the things to do and the things not to do. You pointed out in the article about having your keywords in the URL and I set up a website that has it’s keyword in the domain but I’ve heard that with Google’s latest algo update that they are not giving as much weight to keywords in the URL anymore. Do you know if that is true or not?
I read too much of theme
I read too much of theme
Super helpful post, thanks.
really your post help me to understand more think about seo
to avoid duplicant content use canonical urls!
Thanks for the tips are very helpful