Content matters for search engine
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Content matters for search engine SEO and Link Building Search engines index the entire Web Brand new pages can be hard for search engines to find Absence of pre-existing links isolates web pages from search engines What Google Says About Content Panda hates low-quality content Hates pages that have thin amounts of content and those that are more focused on ads Penguin targets sites that have spammy links It targets over-optimized sites Avoid getting dinged by such updates Defining SEO-Friendly Content Respect the reader's time Use effective titles for your articles Grab your readers' attention with numbers Use killer images and visuals to spice up your content Use keywords strategically Use subheads Make your content easily sharable Tell a story Content & SEO Success Pick a comfortable niche Carefully research keywords Enable social media sharing Variety is the spice of SEO Traditional still works And don’t forget to build an editorial calendar & a message matrix Especially for Content Marketers Keep it fresh Don’t duplicate Learn more about SEO Learn from experts Practice and trial and error Incorporate keywords…but don’t overdo it
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Content matters for search engine
- 1. Content Matters for Search Engines Nupur Pathak | Channel Head - Content December 19th , 2012 © 2012 Regalix Inc. Confidential, All Rights Reserved
- 2. About Nupur Channel Head – Content, responsible for driving content strategy at Regalix 12+ years of experience with brand strategy, marketing communication and digital content for leading multi-million dollar organizations Crafted result-oriented content campaigns for several verticals © 2012 Regalix Inc. Confidential, All Rights Reserved 2
- 3. The SEO Ecosystem Initial Analysis Keyword SERP Report Research & Analysis Competitor Link Popularity Analysis Content Sitemap + RSS Creation Feed Inclusion Search Engine Social + Directory Bookmarking Submission © 2012 Regalix Inc. Confidential, All Rights Reserved
- 4. The SEO Pyramid Social + SEO Link Building Keyword Research and Content Consumable, Useful & Quality Content © 2012 Regalix Inc. Confidential, All Rights Reserved
- 5. SEO and Link Building Search engines index the entire Web Brand new pages can be hard for search engines to find Absence of pre-existing links isolates web pages from search engines © 2012 Regalix Inc. Confidential, All Rights Reserved
- 6. Links Help Build Trust © 2012 Regalix Inc. Confidential, All Rights Reserved
- 7. Trust Aggregates into Authority © 2012 Regalix Inc. Confidential, All Rights Reserved
- 8. Authority Helps Improve Search Rank © 2012 Regalix Inc. Confidential, All Rights Reserved
- 9. How You Can Build Links Press Related Websites Releases Directories Blog Posts Videos Your Website Articles Social Sites Podcasts Social Blog Comments Bookmarking © 2012 Regalix Inc. Confidential, All Rights Reserved
- 10. How to Build Links HARD High Authority Sites Key Influencers & Advanced Social Media PR & Basic Social Media, Partnerships Niche Directories Content Creation General Directories, Organizations, Classifieds EASY © 2012 Regalix Inc. Confidential, All Rights Reserved
- 11. That’s Why Content Matters for SEO © 2012 Regalix Inc. Confidential, All Rights Reserved
- 12. Types of Content that Helps Search Engine Ranking Tips and Press Articles Widgets Advice Releases Centers Video and White Infographics Audio Blogs Papers Content Case Reports Studies © 2012 Regalix Inc. Confidential, All Rights Reserved
- 13. What Google Says About Content Panda hates low-quality content Hates pages that have thin amounts of content and those that are more focused on ads Penguin targets sites that have spammy links It targets over-optimized sites Avoid getting dinged by such updates © 2012 Regalix Inc. Confidential, All Rights Reserved
- 14. Defining SEO-Friendly Content Respect the reader's time Use effective titles for your articles Grab your readers' attention with numbers Use killer images and visuals to spice up your content Use keywords strategically Use subheads Make your content easily sharable Tell a story © 2012 Regalix Inc. Confidential, All Rights Reserved
- 15. Content & SEO Success Pick a comfortable niche Carefully research keywords Enable social media sharing Variety is the spice of SEO Traditional still works And don’t forget to build an editorial calendar & a message matrix © 2012 Regalix Inc. Confidential, All Rights Reserved
- 16. Especially for Content Marketers Keep it fresh Don’t duplicate Learn more about SEO Learn from experts Practice and trial and error Incorporate keywords…but don’t overdo it © 2012 Regalix Inc. Confidential, All Rights Reserved
- 17. © 2012 Regalix Inc. Confidential, All Rights Reserved
- 18. Get in Touch Forefront of Innovation visit: www.regalix.com Digital Marketing Services Technology Enabled Services For a free evaluation of your website / Regalix Labs ecommerce portal, please get in touch with Nick Pinkerton at njpinkerton@regalix-inc.com Multi-disciplinary Leadership Team & Strong Advisory Board, 175+ Team If you have any questions about this webinar please feel free to get in touch with the speaker Nupur Pathak, Nupur@regalix-inc.com Fortune 500 and Venture Backed Customers (B2B and B2C) Global Operations: HQ in Silicon Valley, 4 Offices Industry Recognition © 2012 Regalix Inc. Confidential, All Rights Reserved 18
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- One word on search engine optimization in general first, though. SEO does not start and finish with these steps and the initial work that we do. In order to have ongoing success, it is important to continually monitor results and build meaningful content into the site. I read recently this idea perfectly described by John Tawadros in a newsletter dated May 3, 2007, "it [search engine optimization] is inherently iterative. In short, it is a process, not a project."Keyword ResearchReporting & Goal SettingPage Optimization and Content DevelopmentLink BuildingFollow Up Reporting and Analysis Keyword ResearchKeyword phrase research involves identifying a group of keyword phrases that will be used in optimization. This step is critical and requires a considerable amount of time to find a good set of phrases that offer a balanced combination of two important factors: high usage by searchers and relatively low competition within the search engines.Determining the most used phrase that contains your targeted keyword(s) is relatively easy. Online tools allow you to enter a particular keyword or words and will return all the ways in which that word(s) was used by searchers in the last month and in what volume. However, the most used phrase(s) is also likely the one with the greatest competition within the search results and may, therefore, not be where you would want to devote your optimization efforts. A more effective approach is to find a set of phrases (10 is a nice round number) that are heavily used by searchers but somewhat less competitive in terms of the total number of search results.For example, assume you own a business that leases apartments in a particular metropolitan area, "Big City." Your apartments are only located in one metro area, so you are not going to select general terms such as "apartments;" you are only interested in those searchers seeking an apartment in your city. The logical place to start is with the name of your city and the word "apartments." You may find that the most used phrase is "big city apartments." However, when you do sample searches in Google and Yahoo for that phrase you realize that the competition for that phrase is steep. If you go back to your findings from the keyword tool, you might find that a phrase such as "apartments in big city" is still heavily used by searchers but is far less competitive. Those phrases are the ones you will then target in the next step, site optimization.> return to topReporting & Goal SettingAfter establishing your list of targeted keyword phrases, it is important to understand what the subject site's starting position is within the search engines. Doing so ensures that you know the specific areas that need work and provides a baseline against which to gauge the subsequent campaign's success.Access to site traffic information is very important. These statistics show how searchers are finding and interacting with the subject site, e.g., which search engines, what keyword phrases are being used, bounce rates, most popular content, etc. Understanding the site's traffic level and the source of its referrals can also be a critical tool in making other online marketing decisions - which paid directory links/listings to continue and which to abandon for more effective options.After developing a complete picture of the site's starting position, goals are set for the SEO plan. These goals are measureable (one big advantage of SEO over other advertising options) and tied to the specific business objectives of the site. In the ongoing progress of reporting and follow up, progress towards the plan's goals are analyzed and reported. Adjustments to the SEO plan can be made according to the the findings of these progress reports.> return to topPage Optimization and Content DevelopmentPage optimization and content development are critical to search engine success. Content is king in search engine optimization. The search engines love text; high volume, high-quality content related to your business will serve you in a couple of important ways.First, a site loaded with high-quality content of interest to site users will give them a reason to stay and a reason to come back. After all, the reason they came to your site was to find information. Second, you will receive the added benefit of serving up exactly what the search engines want - content. Search engines will have more information to store about your business and products; that information will translate directly into the ranking they give your site for related keyword phrases. For more information on content development and specific ideas about ways to expand your site's content, read our newsletter article, Content is King.In addition to content development, other important optimization tactics include:Page Titles - Make sure that your site's page titles say something other than just your company name or "welcome." Ideally, they need to lead off with your targeted phrase for that page and then follow with your company name.Text-Based Navigation - Search engines cannot read images. If your site's navigation system is done with images (most are), you will need a text-based navigation system that the search engines can follow to ensure that all the important service and product-related sub-pages of your site are indexed by the search engines.Prominence of Targeted Keyword Phrases - It is not enough to have your keyword phrase(s) somewhere on the web page, the placement and prominence given to them also affects your search engine placement. For example, leading off the site's first paragraph with your keyword phrase gives it more weight than burying it half way down the page in the middle of a paragraph. Also, using larger font sizes and bolding the text can emphasize its importance and positively effect the page's ranking for that phrase.Site Map - Developing a site map that includes a well-organized list of links to all the important pages of your site and includes a text link to the site map on your home page is the ideal way to make sure that all the site's pages are indexed by the search engines when they visit the subject site.ALT and META data - These are tags not seen by the site's users; they are embedded in the site's html code. ALT tags refer to the text that describes an image -- words that you see pop up as you mouse over some images. In optimizing your company's name, an ALT tag placed behind the image of your company's logo is ideal. Meta tags (there are both description tags as well as keyword tags) are lines of code included in the uppermost section of your site's code. They communicate the page's subject matter and relevancy to the search engines. Further, the short description of your site included in some search results is pulled from the meta description tag of the home page and should, therefore, be used to the site's advantage.Clean up the Code - Navigation rollover scripts, other JavaScript-based code, and all CSS scripts should be taken out of the code of each page and put into external files to which each page of the site is referenced. Doing this has several advantages, but one of the most compelling is that your site's keywords and content all move up, up, up in the code, communicating their importance to the search engines and boosting your site's relevancy ratings. In other words, this can boost your search engine rankings by improving the code to text ratio of the page. This is a simple and relatively inexpensive thing to do, depending on the total number of pages in your site.> return to topLink BuildingMaximize Quality Link Popularity - Link Popularity is the term given to the number of other sites linking to yours. You can check your link popularity with the free tool available on this site (it also allows you to compare your link popularity to up to two competitors): http://www.marketleap.com/publinkpop/. Make a list of related businesses with whom you have a relationship, as well as professional organizations, vendors or suppliers that may agree to place a link to your site on theirs. Email your contact in those organizations requesting the link. Each new link to your site increases the likelihood of both the search engines' spiders running across your site as well as searchers looking for services or products like yours. A word of caution: free for all links sites and other low quality sites of that nature are of no use and can, in fact, detract from your progress with penalties from the search engines. Do not waste your time on such sites; stick to respectable, high quality sites in related businesses or industries.Please see the following related articles for more information on link building and SEO.> What is Dandelion Marketing?> Add Social Media Icons to Your Site's Content> How to Build Your Site's Link Popularity> Online Press Releases> return to topFollow Up Reporting and AnalysisThe same reporting done in the initial phase of the campaign is done again at regular intervals, post-optimization. Rankings, site traffic and other key metrics can then be compared to pre-optimization levels, giving measurable results to the SEO campaign. The specific metrics used in an SEO plan will depend on the goals of that site.IMPORTANT NOTES:Time Frame - It can take a while for the search engines to index a site and the rankings to change for that site. For some search engines, the lag time between the work and seeing results can be as long as six months. Clients need to be patient and have realistic expectations regarding the time frame involved with organic (the natural, non paid results) search engine rankings. If the business need for increased search engine prominence is greater than can be met with optimization alone, I recommend adding a pay-per-click (PPC) campaign to the marketing mix to bridge the time. PPC campaigns such as Google's AdWords can be set up in a matter of days, allowing for immediate results.Content Development - The SEO work we perform includes minor non-substantive changes to the site's existing content/text, emphasizing the targeted keyword phrases. We make recommendations on new content; the writing of any new substantive content is the responsibility of the client. We then take your words and make our non-substantive changes to it, in order to maximize its effectiveness. If you do not want us to make these minor changes to the site's text, please let us know.
- or best results, you should start at the bottom of the pyramid and work your way up to the top. First you should start with your website content. If you want your website to succeed in the long run, good SEO isn’t enough. You need high quality content that keeps visitors engaged.The very fundamental of search engine optimization is site structure which brings me to the next part of the pyramid. Site content and structure actually go hand in hand. Your site needs to be structured to accommodate your content. The basic structure most SEO’s use is called an SEO Silo.“Siloing” your site’s content can be explained in one word: categorization. You just need to create a minimum of 4 categories for your site’s content and have at least 4 posts under each category. On the homepage of your site you should display the categories in the navigation bar.So the link juice going to your homepage will be evenly distributed throughout your site. Very simple structure, use it wisely and make sure all of your content is up to scratch. Next you need to make sure your site has no crawl errors. You know, 404 errors and others alike.To find out if your site has any crawl errors, use Google Webmaster Tools. After you’ve sorted your site structure and content quality, you need to focus on your on page optimization. This means keyword optimization. Making sure you properly use header tags, meta titles, descriptions and LSI.On top of that stuff, internal linking is very important. You need to go through your site’s content and strategically link certain phrases to your other posts and pages. Internal linking helps evenly distribute your site’s Page Rank and it also keeps visitors on your site.Once you’ve fully optimized your content to rank for your chosen keywords, it’s time to start link building. Some SEO’s recommend social media before link building, I say a bit of both.I won’t go into too much detail, but content based link building is the best way to start a campaign. Content based means writing, spinning and distributing unique versions of content onto hundreds or thousands of relevant websites linking back to your own.You can build content based links with article marketing, web2.0’s, guest blogging, press release submissions and of course blog networks. They all work well, but press releases have been proven to be highly effective for new link building campains. Press releases sort of justify any sudden influx of backlinks you may receive.When you submit a PR, the search engines believe your site is about to be very popular. So the sudden influx of links you start receiving from other strategies seem normal. If you don’t start off with a few press release submissions, Google gets a little suspicious. You have to justify your backlinks.The search engines always ask why you’re suddenly getting thousands of links. A new website that’s never been mentioned anywhere on the web wouldn’t naturally attract 3000 backlinks would it? But, if you submit PR’s and also get a few people talking about your site on social platforms – your links will look natural.Lastly is the social aspect. If you want your website to succeed beyond expectations, you need to build a community. A community of people who share your site’s content on a regular basis. In order to build a real community, you need to start a blog on the end of your domain.If that’s just not feasible for your kind of website, there are other options. First and foremost, encourage social sharing. Display social buttons on your website. At the bare minimum; display a Facebook Like, Tweet and a Google Plus One button.Displaying those buttons and physically asking visitors to use them will increase your social traffic, presence and search engine rankings. Besides the buttons, use social media! Build a Facebook fan page, have a dedicated Twitter and Google Plus account.
- SEO is going social, and content fuels sharing From Bing’sFacebook Friend Effect for logged-in users to Google’s efforts toward using +1 data as a ranking signal, search engines clearly want to prioritize the results that merit social sharing. This means sites need to focus on publishing information that users will engage with and pass on to their friends – from Q&As and rich informational landing pages to fresh blog posts, industry news updates, timely infographics and more.Build up your site with the content that your audiences want, then broadcast it to social fans and followers. Make it easy for them to pass on to friends by incorporating the sharing buttons on your content pages. Data from Nielsen’s content sharing study shows that people are ready to share when the content is worthy: 27 million pieces of online content are shared daily, and more than one in five social media messages include links to content. Plus, shared content frequently mentions brands by name.Speaking of brands…Searchers click brands, and content can establish brands Search engineers haven’t explicitly said that brands have better performance when it comes to SEO, but the buzz on the searchscape is that brands have been faring better post-Panda. But what constitutes a brand today? And do they really get favorable rankings?There’s a Google Webmaster Help video in which Matt Cutts answers the age-old question, “Is Google putting more weight on brands in search engine rankings?” While he says that he doesn’t think of it as “putting more weight on brands,” Cutts reminds marketers that Google wants to return high-quality results. To businesses focused on this issue, he says, “Try to make a site that is so fantastic that you become known as an authority in your niche.” Similarly, Brafton has reported that the post-Panda search winners seem to be sites that establish themselves as thought leaders with information on a niche topic – and “information” is frequently high-level content that speaks to a specific industry or issue.Plus, business sites with more information (or content pages) around a niche topic are more likely to have multiple pages that come up in the results for related, niche queries. For instance, my search for a very particular product, “spray foam insulators,” returns two results from SprayFoam.com on page one – the first being a “homeowners’ guide” about the benefits of spray foam insulation, and the second being a directory list of all of the site’s articles related to this subject. Brafton has reported that consumers are more likely to click on results from these very visible thought leaders (or “brands.”)Tip 7: Build internal linksInternal link-building is an on-site SEO tactic that consists of creating a well-organized and thorough link structure among your own website's pages. In other words, as many pages as possible should be connected to each other in a hierarchical or web-like connections of in-page, text-based hyperlinks.Pay particular attention to creating connections between your main pages and your homepage; do so via menu objects or by placing the links right into your on-page content.Another helpful internal link-building feature is a sitemap, which has the benefit of also helping search spiders index your site better and faster.Tip 8: Build external linksExternal link building is a different animal: You need to encourage the creation of backlinks to your site from other websites; that is, links on other sites lead back to relevant content on your own website pages.If you want to build external links successfully and without resorting to black hat tactics, you're going to have to dedicate a lot of time to posting links to social sites, finding guest post opportunities that allow you to publish links back to your website, leaving plenty of informative guest comments on other websites in your niche, and syndicating your RSS feed (if you have one).(Try to ensure that those links are not "nofollow." Links with a nofollow attribute are ignored by search spiders as a valid backlink in the sense that your site doesn't receive "credibility points" from the search engines. You can still get visitors as a result of those links, however, because people will click on them and end up on your site.)The process of building backlinks is slow, but it eventually pays off to create some really good SEO.
- Quality content makes your site visible in search engines, but perhaps more importantly for marketers, it can influence purchase decisions. More than half of marketers (57 percent) say their blogs have led to customer acquisitions, according to HubSpot’s Inbound Marketing Survey. From consumers’ perspective, it’s clear that content that can be easily discovered online is a preferred method of product and service research. Nearly three-quarters of shoppers prefer information from companies in the form of articles over ads, and 42 percent look to blogs for information about potential purchases.The value of content in terms of converting search (and other) site visitors holds true whether you’re in the B2B or B2C sector: Sixty-one percent of consumers are more likely to buy from brands that offer custom content, and 60 percent of business decision makers say content helps them make purchase decisions.While these numbers speak to the value of content anywhere across the web, a study from BlogHer demonstrate the value of SEO-friendly content, in particular: Nineteen percent of beauty buyers who say blog posts impact their purchase decisions report they stumble upon the most useful content via search.
- Quality content makes your site visible in search engines, but perhaps more importantly for marketers, it can influence purchase decisions. More than half of marketers (57 percent) say their blogs have led to customer acquisitions, according to HubSpot’s Inbound Marketing Survey. From consumers’ perspective, it’s clear that content that can be easily discovered online is a preferred method of product and service research. Nearly three-quarters of shoppers prefer information from companies in the form of articles over ads, and 42 percent look to blogs for information about potential purchases.The value of content in terms of converting search (and other) site visitors holds true whether you’re in the B2B or B2C sector: Sixty-one percent of consumers are more likely to buy from brands that offer custom content, and 60 percent of business decision makers say content helps them make purchase decisions.While these numbers speak to the value of content anywhere across the web, a study from BlogHer demonstrate the value of SEO-friendly content, in particular: Nineteen percent of beauty buyers who say blog posts impact their purchase decisions report they stumble upon the most useful content via search.
- Top Types of SEO ContentBlog Posts – Add fresh content to your site, allow you to optimize for certain topics, give you the means to add fresh keywords, update your social media communities, when posted provide backlinks and increase your website’s internal linking.Articles – We’re talking about external articles here… Allow you to build backlinks, become an authority on a topic and get exposure for your company.Press Releases – Get a buzz going about your company, build backlinks, and announce your news and other great content.Infographics – Create information-rich images that people want to link to, allow you to demonstrate your graphic skills and get a buzz going about a topic.Videos – Add rich media to your website (which Google loves), allow you to get ranked in Google video search, can give you a presence on YouTube (if you use their player) and enhance the diversity of information on your website.Audio Downloads – Can be great link bait, give people something of value and give people a great reason to visit your website.Case studies, Whitepapers and Industry reports – Can allow you to generate leads, serve as excellent link bait and allow you to demonstrate in-depth knowledge.
- Panda punishes content farms and publishers of low-quality content, such as irrelevant, duplicate, scraped, low-authority, and keyword-stuffed content. It also penalizes pages that have thin amounts of content and those that appear to be focused more on ads than on useful content. Penguin tackles sites that engage in spammy linking strategies, such as paid links, link exchanges, link farms, and comment spam. It also penalizes over-optimized sites, such as those with keyword-heavy site tags and unnatural internal linking. To avoid getting dinged by updates such as these, you should... Focus on quality content and links (covered in “C Is for Content,” “Q Is for Quality,” and “L Is for Links”). Avoid over-optimizing your site, including tags and anchor links
- 1. Respect the reader's timeEveryone is busy, and most people would rather scan an article first before they decide whether it's worth reading. Make it easy for your readers to know what your article is all about at a glance. Make it interesting enough for them to want to read all of it. Have a point of view and give an opinion.You want to invite and generate engagement and discussion with people who both agree and disagree with you.2. Use effective titles for your articlesYour title should be able to tell your readers at a glance what your entire article is all about. Remember: Your title is a summary of your entire piece. Be careful to avoid being gimmicky. You may attract people at the beginning, but if they see that you are using trickery as a strategy to get their attention, you'll end up losing readers in the long run.A good practice is to use 8-10 words when formulating your title, especially if you want it shared on social sites. On Twitter, for example, you'll want to limit the number of words in your title to leave enough space so people can easily retweet your post. And don't promise something in your title that you don't deliver in your post. That will only serve to irk your readers.3. Grab your readers' attention with numbersReaders are attracted to numbers. Numbers allow them to quickly and easily navigate your content, and they give a structure to your article. See? I'm doing it right now and you're hooked, aren't you?4. Use killer images and visuals to spice up your contentAdd pictures, infographics, slide shows, and artwork to your written pieces. Images not only break up the text portion of your article but also make the entire article more visually interesting.People are attracted to visuals. Make sure that the visuals you use are your own creations. If not, make sure you get permission to use them from the original owners of the graphics and give credit where it's due.6. Use keywords strategicallyKnow your keywords (see my earlier comment about doing your homework) and your keyword research. Go into the process knowing what people are searching for in relation to your content, and then use that input to guide the creation of key content areas, such as your headline, first paragraph, meta tags, and meta description. But be careful not to overdo it!Today more than ever, quality content is a really big deal. Using too many keywords, or repeating the same ones over and over because you're lazy, compromises the quality of your content and it can get you in trouble with search engines, too.7. Use subheadsIf your article is longer than 250-400 words, using subheads is a good idea. Subheads will entice your visitors to continue reading your article and easily find sections of most interest to them. Plus, subheads add more fuel for search engines, so use keywords to help craft your subheads.(And don't forget to break up text into short paragraphs to make it more readable on a computer monitor.)8. Make your content easily sharableYou've hit publish on a dazzlingly brilliant piece that's thoughtful, informative, and optimized for search engines. Yet, if your content isn't being shared, it's not nearly as effective.Make sure your site includes social sharing buttons for all of the major social media channels. And if you're crafting a piece such as a press release, include links so people can easily access images and more information. Remember: We're busy. We're lazy. And we don't want to work for information. Give the people what they want!9. Tell a storyNo matter what topic you write about, the best copywriting technique always involves telling a good story. Nothing beats quality content that is written well and contains interesting and relevant information that's both helpful and entertaining.
- SEO, when done well—with quality in mind—doesn't just help increase your search rankings; it also improves your entire website from the viewpoint of search engines as well as your visitors. And that, rather than a cheap shot at fooling search engine algorithms, should be the ultimate aim of your SEO campaign.So here are 10 tips that won't just knock you up a few places in search results pages for a couple of months; rather, they'll help turn a visit to your website into a better experience and help your site to naturally grow in popularity.Tip 1: Create incredible contentThe most important aspect of your website—and the most important part of all your optimization efforts—is your content. You can't get around that fact in the long run, even with the best of SEO tricks. And why would you want to? You can fool the search bots for a while (and less and less with every passing year), but if your content is of low quality, nobody is going to visit your website or share with the world what you're offering.Good content, on the other hand, will be eventually be widely read and widely shared by others, often on their own websites, creating excellent link-building opportunities for your website (see Tip No. 5).Your site's content must be well written, informative, as unique as possible, and free of excessive keyword use intended solely to garner search spider attention. If your content is genuinely informative and written for the niche it's serving, it will already have the keywords you need. Update your content frequently to focus on the latest information in you niche.Tip 2: Pick a comfortable nicheYour blog or website can deal with extremely general subjects, but that will make your work a lot harder. General-interest websites have to deal with stiff competition from some very powerful and well established players.Sticking to a niche, on the other hand, limits your audience but also limits your competition. You can write more authoritatively on your subject, and you can more easily generate a reputation for reliability among a much smaller but more loyal circle of readers.The important thing is to research the keywords that are most searched for in your niche and use them wisely in your Web pages. You should also keep well abreast of new developments in the field.Tip 3: Carefully research keywordsWe've noted the danger of using too many keywords, but that does not mean you have to deliberately stop using them; on the contrary, keywords are still vital for SEO.Compile a well-researched list of the most commonly searched for keywords and phrases in your niche by using tools such as Google's Keyword Tool; once you've got them sorted out, scatter them strategically throughout your content, your headlines, and your sub-headers. Just make sure you don't overdo it by using them to the point that text flow seems unnatural.Tip 4: Stick to SEO-friendly URLsYou should also optimize all of your website's pages at a basic level. Start by ensuring that every page of your website has a distinct and SEO-friendly URL that describes what the page is about in a few words. For example, if you have a page about cooking steak, instead of <www.myawesomesite.com/tips/item4?=45756>, convert your URL into something like <www.myawesomesite.com/tips/grilling-the-best-steak>. That is much more search engine friendly.Tip 5: Use tags and Meta descriptionsYou should create concisely informative meta descriptions of all your Web pages with the keywords for that page appearing in the description; you'll have 150-160 characters to fill. These meta descriptions are likely not use by Google any more for ranking, but they're useful in attracting attention from human readers in the search results page, so use them anyway.Also include title tags for every important page of your site. These need to fit within 70 characters and should offer very quick descriptions of the individual pages they represent with at least one or two page relevant keywords within them. Make these friendly to human readers, don't just list keywords.Tip 6: Don't forget image attributesYou likely have content-relevant images on your website or blog; those images offer an excellent SEO boosting opportunity thanks to image search features on Google and other engines. However, search spiders can't analyze images well if related text is not included—though they do consider the name of the image file (e.g., "cavalier-king-charles-puppy.jpg" is better than "sidebar-image.jpg"). Therefore, you need to create brief HTML description tags for each image you post amid your website content. These tags should consist of a quick description of what the image is of or what it relates to in your content. (Here's a quick tutorial on image SEO tactics.)Tip 7: Build internal linksInternal link-building is an on-site SEO tactic that consists of creating a well-organized and thorough link structure among your own website's pages. In other words, as many pages as possible should be connected to each other in a hierarchical or web-like connections of in-page, text-based hyperlinks.Pay particular attention to creating connections between your main pages and your homepage; do so via menu objects or by placing the links right into your on-page content.Another helpful internal link-building feature is a sitemap, which has the benefit of also helping search spiders index your site better and faster.Tip 8: Build external linksExternal link building is a different animal: You need to encourage the creation of backlinks to your site from other websites; that is, links on other sites lead back to relevant content on your own website pages.If you want to build external links successfully and without resorting to black hat tactics, you're going to have to dedicate a lot of time to posting links to social sites, finding guest post opportunities that allow you to publish links back to your website, leaving plenty of informative guest comments on other websites in your niche, and syndicating your RSS feed (if you have one).(Try to ensure that those links are not "nofollow." Links with a nofollow attribute are ignored by search spiders as a valid backlink in the sense that your site doesn't receive "credibility points" from the search engines. You can still get visitors as a result of those links, however, because people will click on them and end up on your site.)The process of building backlinks is slow, but it eventually pays off to create some really good SEO.Tip 9: Enable Social Media SharingEnable as many social media sharing options on your website as you can. Install buttons for all the major social sites (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn) and others on every important page of your website. With these buttons, your readers can spread the word about the valuable and interesting content you have to offer; eventually that content can find its way to other websites and so lead to some quality backlinks.Tip 10: Avoid using Flash and images as textThe search spiders that index websites read only text on websites and are, for the most part, incapable of analyzing Flash or image files. So, in general, stay away from both as content mediums. Do not use Flash-based site navigation tools and stay away from creating content text that is in image form.In the case of Flash navigation, the search bot won't be able to click through to index the pages the flash navigation links to, leaving parts of your website without indexing. In the case of image-based text, any useful information and keywords you put there will be invisible to the search engine.
- Keep it FreshKeeping your content fresh can help you increaseyour search engine placements. Some website ownersobtain high search engine rankings and thenmake the mistake of not changing their website forfear of negatively impacting their rankings. This strategyis faulty because it is fresh content that keepsvisitors coming back to your website. Try addingfresh content at least once per month; you shouldsee the impact of a steady stream of new content bythe second month of deployment, and this can easilybe tracked.38 | Don’t Duplicate. Don’tDuplicate.Whether or not popular search engines have apenalty for duplicate content is under debate in theSEO community. Some argue that it is merely a myth,while others testify that they have seen a tremendousboost in ratings by simply replacing any duplicatedcontent in question. One of the main reasons searchengines may impose a duplicate content penalty isto avoid serving up nearly identical pages in theirrankings, as this is not useful to those who use thesearch engine and may cause people to opt for a differentsearch engine. To be on the safe side, create original content on yourwebsite and place a copyright notice on your websiterestricting others from using your content. Next, filterany content you publish on your website with duplicatecontent checking technology. Also, frequentlysearch for duplicate content on your website and takeaction if you find issues. Don’t worry about contentthat other sites may have copied from your website—you can use Google’s archive dates to help determinepublishing dates.39 | Get in the Know About SEOThe web is filled with plenty of content that is relatedto SEO. Searching for phrases such as, “SEO strategies,”“SEO techniques,” “SEO tips,” or similar phraseswill yield countless results. When using the internetfor research, pay attention to the dates associatedwith the information you find, as SEO has changedthroughout the years and articles written just a fewyears ago may be very outdated. The benefit of usingthe internet to research SEO is that websites that areranked high in the search engines are skilled at SEOand are therefore likely to provide quality information.40 | Follow the LeadersOne way to learn SEO techniques is to study otherwebsites that rank well in the search engines. As youreview these websites, make note of what you reallylike about them. This might include the colors, fonts,content, services or products available, or anythingelse that catches your eye. This is important becausewhat you like about this particular website is likelyto be enjoyed by other readers as well. The searchengines are aware of the characteristics that appeal tothe masses, and they reward these websites with highrankings, so look and learn.41 | If at First You Don’t Succeed…Practice and trial-and-error cannot be overestimatedwhen it comes to SEO. Once you launch and optimizeyour website, it takes time to evaluate the results ofyour efforts. If you find that your search engine rankingsare lower than expected, it's time to start experimentingwith different strategies. Try only changingone variable at a time so that you can determine whichvariable helps to increase or decrease your rankings.If you make too many changes at once, it might bedifficult to determine what has affected your site'srankings. Prove your ability to achieve top listings withsuper long tail keyword phrases you use in the contenton a page, title tag, meta keywords, and meta descriptions,then build some internal links within your site tothat page using that phrase.44 | It Never EndsYou’ll never be done with your SEO work. You have toaccept this when you begin any SEO project in orderto avoid frustration, disappointment, or confusion.SEO isn’t something that you can do just once anddeclare done; rather, SEO is one of the most complexareas of online marketing and must be worked onregularly and treated as a process, with techniquesbeing tested and revised constantly. Find trackingtechnology that will allow you to manage the performanceof your SEO skills, performance of the website,and success or failure of specific keyword phrases.You can never guarantee that top listing positions willresult from your SEO efforts. Any such claim by anyoneis an instant declaration of SEO ignorance. Placementin “natural language” or free search (the listingson the left-hand side of most search results) can’t beguaranteed because the formulas used to rank sitesare secret and constantly changing. Companies maybe able to guarantee ranking using pay-per-click ads,but this is a different thing entirely. So, when you getin tune with SEO skills, beware of false promises andspecific rankings. Instead, get in tune with best practiceknowledge about how to optimize content for thesearch engines with specific keywords targeted for thecampaign, supporting an overall SEO strategy.45 | Be a JoinerYou can learn a lot about SEO by joining online forumsor email lists where users exchange SEO information.This is an excellent resource for novice website ownerswho want to ask questions about strategies for SEO.The responses you receive can be insightful. Also,if you choose an active forum, you will likely receivemultiple opinions on any given topic and be privy todebates on different strategies.46 | Deep, Dark SecretsSEO is a complex task because the criteria used torank sites are confidential. The ranking formula usedby each search engine is that company’s most valuableintellectual property, so they don’t reveal it. There arearound 200 criteria used to rank sites and the exactweight that is given to each item is never revealed.To make matters even more complicated, the weightthat’s given to these items changes regularly in orderto deal with advances in search and optimization techniques.As a result, adhering to best practices is alwaysgoing to get you better long-term results than flavorof-the-month SEO. Go with the tried and true.47 | Don’t Overdo ItWriters with new SEO tools often overwork SEO fora website. Keep it simple for success in the searchengines. Content on your website should be relatedto the overall theme of your website. It should alsobe written in straightforward language that is easy forreaders to follow.Best practice keyword density is largely debatable.Many SEO experts consider 2 to 20% an appropriaterange, and most agree that overuse of keywords (thatis, exceeding 20%) is not an effective strategy for SEOsuccess. Most search engines can detect when keywordsare not being used logically and your websitemight be banned if caught using keywords unnaturally.Also, stuffing keywords will not look natural to readers.If your content is relative to the keywords that you optimizefor, you will naturally use the words repeatedlyand will achieve a density that does not appear forced.Check your content with a keyword density tool toconfirm that you’re not using a particular keywordexcessively. Easy does it.48 | The Meta Keyword DebateAt one time, having the right meta keywords was thekey to SEO success. Not any more. As search enginesand their ranking techniques have gotten more complex,meta keywords have taken on less importance ingood SEO; however, it is still very important that theybe used wisely and effectively. Although more than30 meta keywords are technically allowed, for bestpractice, select only five to eight keywords per page,relevant to the content on the page. Bear in mindthat Google has published documents stating thatits algorithm does not factor in meta keywords whendetermining listing positions. But every inch counts!Descriptive tags also fall into the debate camp of effortvs. reward, but creating meta descriptions alongwith all meta data is best practice and imperative toSEO. Some argue that search engines disregard metatags in their search algorithms, but no one makes thecase that you may be penalized for optimizing tags.Evidence suggests that Google publishes the contentof meta descriptions often in the actual search resultsthat are displayed on the page.49 | The Spice of Life—and SEOOne mistake that novice optimizers make is not takingadvantage of keyword variations, synonyms, and familykeywords in optimization practice. Repeating the samekeyword throughout your article may result in a highkeyword density, but it might also be worthwhile to replacea few of those original keywords with variationsof the keyword. While it is a good idea to do keywordresearch to determine which keywords are popularin search engines, it is also important to rememberthat not all internet users think alike. For example, awebsite on keyword variations should contain keywordderivatives or keyword deviation, as these might beterms used by internet searchers. Fill your web contentwith keywords and variations of these keywords in anatural way and your website will appeal to both readersand search engines.50 | Don’t Forget TraditionalMarketingSEO specialists often put the blinders on to natural,organic growth on the web. Traditional online marketingwith paid text ads, banner ads, affiliate marketingcampaigns, email campaigns, and other onlinemarketing initiatives complements and supports SEOefforts. Marketing can be an effective SEO strategyfor both new websites that are preparing to launchand for existing websites that are looking to increasesearch engine rankings. This may seem like an unusualstrategy for SEO, but marketing creates interest inyour website, which can increase time-on site visitation,traffic support and growth, and other factors thatcan trigger the algorithm to make the case for rankingimprovement in the search engines. Basically, the artand science of SEO includes popularity on the web,which can be supported with online marketing.