SEO tips

SEO tips refers to the process of search engine optimization which means, in very basic terms, getting your website found by the search engines.

However wonderful your website, whatever a work of love and commitment it is, you're wasting your time if nobody can find it.

People base their entire careers on offering SEO services, so I'm only going to scratch the surface here, but there are some essential SEO tips that you must follow to even stand a chance of some success in the search engines.

SEO tips: 6 absolute basics

1) Build a website that is keyword rich ... that means avoiding the fancy flash animations and creating quality, text-based content which uses high demand, low supply, high profit keywords.

2) Make sure that you have submitted your website to the top 4 search engines and at least one quality directory, probably The Open Source Directory. That means submitting your website URL to Google, Yahoo!, Ask.com and Live search.

3) Make sure that you have given each web page a Title and a Description and added your list of keywords. Your main keyword for a page should be first and you should list no more than 5 keywords or phrases.

4) Do not use frames to build your website, not only because they're evil, vile things that make life difficult for your website user, but because the search engines hate them too.

5) Is your website navigation visible to the search engines? For instance, have you used images or Flash buttons which the search engines just can't 'see' or interpret? If the search engines can't 'see' their way around your site navigation, you're wasting your time ... however nice the artistic work!

6) Get contextually relevant links to your website from other websites. No link farms or scams, just an honest program of building links with quality websites that share the same theme as you, but which aren't in competition with you. Start your link exchange work early and keep building it.

SEO Tips: More detail

First, let me save you some money as I hope all of these SEO tips will do in the long run!

Do not submit your website URL to one of these companies which promises to pass it on to lots and lots of search engines on your behalf.

It's a complete waste of time and money.

How do I know? Because in my early career building commercial websites I did it ... but now I know better.

If you submit to the 'big three' you will be accessing a huge percentage of all searches made on the web (what's left is, frankly, negligible) and what's more it won't cost you a penny.

Here are the links you'll need:

Submit to Google

Submit to Bing

Submit to Ask.com ... Ask.com don't make life easy in this department, so here's a I got from Site Build It!.

SEO tips: The Open Source Directory

As well as submitting to the 'big four' you also need to try and get a listing in The Open Source Directory, which is free but virtually impossible.

The Open Source Directory is a well respected, human run directory which makes a significant impact on your website success.

However, when you submit your website, you get no acknowledgement and you can wait months to get listed ... and if you don't get listed, nobody actually lets you know.

Try submitting your website and find out for yourself how frustrating this important process is.

If you're feeling flush you can submit your website to the Yahoo! Directory if you have $299 free, but these days even that doesn't guarantee success.

My advice would be to submit to the 'big four' and DMOZ, hang on to your money and be prepared for a long wait with DMOZ.

SEO tips: Finding the right keywords

I'll be honest with you, I really dislike the process of getting keywords right.

It's like prospecting for gold - you sift a lot of mud, and there's not a lot of gold in there.

However, I know that if i don't get my keywords right, I'm wasting my time ... so whether I like it or not, I've got to do it.

Here's my number 1 keyword tip and I offer you this as someone who had to learn this the hard way!

Do not even start to build your website or register your domain name until you have done your keyword research.

If you do, you may end up barking up the wrong tree entirely, opting for a niche that has no demand, little scope and near zero profitability.

Probably the best place to begin with keywords is with Wordtracker, which offeres a free trial and also a very useful keyword suggestion tool.

I started this process with Wordtracker, which offers and extremely good service, but I'll admit that the constant searching, checking, sifting and sorting drove me absolutely mad. In my despair, I accidentally discovered Site Build It! which takes care of all that for you, so I've opted for what I consider to be the easier route.

However, I'd recommend that you give Wordtracker a try before you do anything else - make the most of the free trial - and see if it suits you.

They also offer some excellent support materials and videos too, so you should definitely give it the 'once over'.

Although I don't use the 'paid for' service any more, i make very regular use of that free keyword suggestion tool.

SEO tips: coding essentials

Depending on how you make your web pages, you need to make sure that you enter the correct data into your page so that the search engines recognise what the page is about.

This means that Title/Keywords/Desciption information needs to be correct.

This is how the code looks in a page created with Dreamweaver:

<title>SEO tips</title>
<meta name="keywords" content="seo tips + up to 4 others separated by commas">
<meta name="description" content="You can use these straightforward SEO tips to give your website a better chance of being found in search engines ... ">

This is how the same information looks in a simple sitebuilder, in this case Site Build It!

In addition to this, each web page needs the following to be search engine optimized:

• Use of the main keyword in a text link (see how I've done this right at the bottom of this page)
• Use of the main keyword in the heading at the beginning of the page (see how I've done this right at the top of this page)
• Use of the keyword in the first 90 characters of the page (see how I've done this right at the top of this page)
• Use of the keyword an appropriate number of times in relation to the amount of text on the page. Too many times and the search engines punish you for 'keyword stuffing', use the keyword too few times and the search engines can't work out what your page is about.

What's an appropriate number of times? Well, I have to admit that I 'cheat' in that department, because I use Site Build It! which has a built-in analyzer to tell me if I've got my pages properly keyword optimized.

If you don't have a facility like this you can use one of the many free keyword density tools that are available on the web.

As a rough guide, your page should read well and naturally for a human reader ... if it doesn't it's probably 'keyword stuffed' ... your keyword should be added to the page as a chef would flavour a recipe - not too much, not too little.

There's no exact answer to this question, but build your page for humans first, don't try to manipulate the search engines and don't get too hung up on search engine optimization ... after all, if your website is rubbish, people might find it but they won't stay long!

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